For the third time in five years, the San Francisco Giants are headed to the World Series. Travis Ishikawa’s walk off three run homerun sealed that fate and echoed of Bobby Thomson’s walk off homerun that won the Giants the pennant in 1951. Giants’ fans flooded social media instantly with videos and pictures from the seats of AT&T Park all the way to Giants bar Finnerty’s in Manhattan’s East Village.
“The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” former Giants broadcaster Russ Hodges famously said 63 years ago.
And on Oct. 16 for the 23rd time, the Giants won the pennant again.
It was only two short years ago that the San Francisco Giants were playing the Saint Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series, and it was not entirely certain whether or not they would come out on the other end as winners. With a 3-1 deficit, the Giants not only came back to win the NLCS in Game 7, but went on to sweep the Detroit Tigers in four games.
In 2010, the Giants beat the Texas Rangers in Game 5 to win their first World Series in San Francisco, and their first since 1954.
Giants broadcaster Jon Miller told KNBR’s Brian Murphy and Paul McCaffrey that “this is the golden era of Giants baseball.”
For long time fans, these last few years of winning bring back notions of the 1920s and 1930s when the New York Yankees and the then New York Giants seemed to have regular dates at the World Series. Before the Giants moved to San Francisco, they had 17 pennants and have gotten only six since moving to the Bay Area in 1958.
This year, the Giants will be meeting the Kansas City Royals, who have an 8-0 postseason record.
With all of their pennant wins in the last five years, the Giants entered the World Series against teams that had either never been to the World Series or had not been in a number of years. It is no different for the Royals as this is their first appearance since winning their first and only World Series in 1985.
The Giants have been to the show before though, and they certainly know how to rise to the occasion. History also shows that they know how to fall which was seen when they lost the 1989 World Series to the Oakland A’s and the 2002 World Series to the then Anaheim Angels.
Despite their World Series winnings lately, the Giants are still not favored to win against the Royals.
However, the postseason Giants of the last few years have been known for walk off homers and beating eliminations, time and time again. It is as in the words of Giants broadcaster Duane Kuiper, “Giants baseball: Torture.”
The World Series begins Tuesday, Oct. 21. All games will be at 5:07 p.m. Pacific Standard Time.
