
NBC Sports Bay Area is looking back at the Giants' 60 Memorable Moments since the franchise moved from New York to San Francisco. Tune into Pregame Live at 4 p.m. to see the next two moments you can vote on! Then, after the Giants and Brewers conclude, tune into Postgame Live to see which moment will move on.
1. Travis Ishikawa's walk-off homer wins 2014 NL Pennant (Five-time winner -- Defeated Willie Mays Career Milestones - 3000th Hit & 600th Home Run)
(From former Giants third base coach and current NBC Sports Bay Area analyst Tim Flannery)
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After winning a one-game Wild Card showdown in Pittsburgh and then dramatically defeating the heavily favored Washington Nationals 3 games to 1, we found ourselves one series away from another trip to the World Series. After four tough fought games against the St. Louis Cardinals, we were leading the NLCS 3 games to 1 and back in San Francisco with our ace Madison Bumgarner on the mound with a chance to make history once again.
Bum would be facing the Cards veteran ace Adam Wainwright, who was very familiar pitching win-or-go-home games. The Cards struck first, scoring one in the 3rd inning, but Joe Panik hit a two-run homer to take the lead and get the packed house in China Basin on their feet and going wild. The Cards came right back to quiet the crowd and steal back the momentum with two homers of their own and take back the lead 3- 2. Bumgarner and Wainwright both went into shut down mode retiring the rest of the hitters they saw. With the Cardinals leading by one, relief specialist Pat Neshek took over in the 8th only to surrender a huge pinch-hit homer to Michael Morse who went down and hooked a slider up and out to left field to tie the game.
Santiago Casilla took over in the 9th and after loading the bases, Jeremy Affeldt came in once again and shut down the Cardinals and keep the game tied into the bottom of the 9th.
With Michael Wacha taking the mound for the Cardinals, the crowd at AT&T came to their feet knowing one run would send us to our 3rd World Series in the last five years. Pablo Sandoval singled to start the inning and with one out, Brandon Belt walked. Joaquin Arias pinch ran for Sandoval. Travis Ishikawa came to the plate to hit and with the count 2-0, he went down and crushed a low, sinking fastball to right field hitting a line drive that looked like it had a chance to get over the head of the right fielder. As the third base coach, I immediately checked my runner at second base, and Árias did the correct thing, going half way on the ball in the air. When I looked back to find the ball, everything went into slow motion and deftly quiet, at least in my head. Then I realized the ball was over the outfielder and we were going to win the Pennant.
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At that moment, the quiet in my head erupted into total chaos as the ball continued into the seats for a walk-off, Pennant winning moment that would be part of history forever. Bedlam broke out with Ishikawa running around the bases with his teammates running down the line with him jumping and screaming. Jake Peavy sprinted by me and ran on the field to jump on Travis at second base thinking he hit a double, not a homer to win it. Waiting at home plate, the rest of the team was delirious waiting on Ishikawa to run through the obstacles of people, flying helmets and tears until he touched home plate and sent the Giants to the World Series and his legacy into the history books forever right next to the Bobby Thompson’s “Shot Heard ‘round the World” as the “Giants win the Pennant, the Giants win the Pennant, the Giants win the Pennant.”
Fans, friends and family danced and partied on the field and then into the Clubhouse to celebrate all night, still not believing what had just taken place. A very surreal moment that will never be forgotten.
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2. Barry Bonds sets all-time home run record with 756th homer
(From former Giants infielder and current play-by-play broadcaster Duane Kuiper)
Every time he came to the plate for about a week, we just anticipated that he was going to hit it out of the park. And I always said, it was going to be spontaneous on my part, I wasn't going to prepare anything, whatever comes out, comes out as long as you get the number right, we can live with that.
And as each game went by and he didn't do it, I got a little more frightened. So I finally did write maybe about a half a paragraph of what I wanted to say, I but I continued to lie to everybody and say 'Nope, it's going to be right off the top of my head.'
Then he hits the home run and as it's leaving the park, now I'm scrambling to see where I put the note. I kind of hid it so Mike (Krukow) wouldn't see it because I lied to him, and as the ball landed, I watched him cheer, then I look at him and he's looking at me looking at my notes so I finally had to confess that I did cheat a little on the call.
But as soon as contact was made, and that was the great thing about being able to call most of Bonds' home runs in a Giants uniform was that he never hit any to the warning track. When he hit them, you didn't have to worry about was the guy going to catch it, and 756 was exactly like that, when he hit it, you knew it was gone.
Funny story about the "Bonds Stands Alone" comment. I decided that was probably going to be the appropriate thing to say after the ball left the park. The next day I called my brother Jeff, our producer and asked him 'What did you think of the call 'Bonds Stands Alone'?' He said 'It's really interesting because I wrote something down on a piece of paper about a week ago that I was going to suggest to you that might be a really nice thing to say and I'll show it to you when we get to the park the next day.' So I looked at the piece of paper and it said 'Bonds Stands Alone,' so he had the same thought process as I did. And i was really honored because I think it was The Chronicle the next day that had the headline 'Bonds Stands Alone."
After a while, you kind of take things for granted. Yeah, I was there for the record and it was way cool. Then the other day, I was here for his jersey retirement ceremony and they played it and there it was. As I was standing out there, I said 'This is cool.' It's cool for my kids, hopefully when they get around to having kids, it'll be cool for my grandkids, and it'll be part of the history of this franchise forever.
It's very, very cool.
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