THE CATCHER keeps jumping into the closer's arms. The television screen in a house in Mesa, Ariz., plays and replays the same scene: The last pitch of the World Series is thrown, the closer's arms go skyward, the catcher sprints out from behind the plate.

The closer's arms pump in front of his chest in a wild, exuberant dance -- a creation best described as Gangnam-meets-butter-churn -- and the image on the screen freezes.

Two people sit in the room: the closer and his 7-year-old son.

All is quiet until the closer asks, "Who's that right there?"

"That's you, Dad."

There is a pause before the closer speaks, quietly, nearly under his breath.

"Yeah, that is me, isn't it?"

WHERE DO you go to find the guy you used to be?

The world wants to see you as a caricature, the cartoon closer, the lovable little guy with the ridiculous black beard, and you don't really know who that guy is. The guy you know is the one who derives sustenance from every slight and slur, who carries around insecurities like textbooks in a backpack, who was always too small or too emotional or just too damned uncoachable to ever amount to anything.

Despite his slight frame and not-fast fastball, Romo closed out three of the four Giants' World Series wins. Ron Vesely/MLB Photos/Getty Images)

How do you keep that guy alive when the world refuses to acknowledge him?

How do you get across the idea that that guy, the son of Mexican immigrants who calls himself "a beaner from Brawley," is the only reason you're here in the first place? The world wants to replace that guy with a two-dimensional image of a fun-loving, photo-bombing, political-T-shirt-wearing closer with nutty facial hair and a wild postsave celebration.

To be fair, you've given them reason to pass judgment on the images they see. You and your bullpen buddy decided to grow beards for the playoffs way back in 2010, and two years later you both looked like hermits, the epic facial hair viewed as the outward manifestation of your inner wackiness. In the 2012 playoffs, you turned goofiness into a cottage industry, standing behind on-camera broadcasters and teammates alike, mugging in an orchestrated attempt to bring attention to yourself.

You were a public relations dream, catching every single ceremonial first pitch in your home ballpark. Returning soldiers, corporate glad-handers, kids with cancer -- you caught them all, taking a mundane duty normally the domain of bullpen catchers or first base coaches and making it performance art. If your team needed someone to chew some scenery in television commercials promoting giveaways or theme nights, you were there. Gnomes, texting gloves, Filipino Heritage Night -- you were a ham for every occasion. Dress up like a martial artist and whip around the nunchucks to sell Bruce Lee Tribute Night? Hey, no problem.

It's easy to get lost in a persona and easier still for everyone else to see nothing else.

But don't these people -- the ones who now want you to perform on demand, like a community windup toy -- understand the difference between perception and reality? Can't they see the beard and the gamesmanship for what they are -- shields to defy uncertainty?

How did he get to this point? How did he become a two-time World Series champion with a new two-year, $9 million contract? Sergio Romo shakes his head, shrugs -- even he isn't sure. Start with defiance -- of convention, of expectation. He's among the smallest closers in baseball history, a 5'10", 165-pound human whip who describes himself as "a power pitcher without power stuff." Without the outsize bravado to not only stare down his doubters but piss them off, he wouldn't be here. There would be no slider with the super-secret grip that allows the pitch to look like a fastball until the last second, when it seems the ball is attached to a string and someone in the first base dugout is reeling it in. "I don't throw 95 and I'll never throw 95," he says. "But the slider is my 95."

He's accustomed to fighting for everything. It's the theme of his 30 years on earth. He talks about "the chip on my shoulder and the attitude on my forehead" as if they're his best friends. Everyone else can forget the guy who struggled and doubted and kept a mental ledger of every criticism and critic; he doesn't have the luxury. Now everyone, even the people who said he'd never amount to anything, wants to tell him how great he is. Now everybody saw it coming. Now the lines blur, and it's getting harder to keep track of the sides involved in Romo v. The World.

PUNK. THAT was the word he heard the most.

He heard it through high school in the California desert town of Brawley. He heard it when he left for Orange Coast College, the first of four schools he would attend in four years. People -- local college coaches, aimless townies -- would say, "You think you're bad because you're going off to college?" He sensed a similar undercurrent when he was drafted by the Giants in the 28th round in 2005. In his mind's eye, he still sees them, finishing their taunts with a dismissive flip of the hand and the words that cut to the bone: "You'll be back like the rest of them." That got to him: … like the rest of them. They grouped him with a culture of failure in this place with its infernal weather and inferiority complex.