Travis Ishikawa played eight years in Major League Baseball, mostly with the San Francisco Giants. His walk-off home run in the 2014 National League Championship Series sent the Giants to the World Series. He is now a minor-league hitting coach in the Giants organization. 

20 comments

  8. I was there in the center field bleachers and I SWEAR there was a moment of silence between the bat crack and the crowd’s reaction. The video clips say otherwise but it’s how I will always remember it.

  9. Great article. Travis will always have a place in Giants history and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy

  12. I remember thinking there is no way we can repeat 2010 and 2012, then this happened! Goosebumps all over again. What a time to be alive.

  13. Crazy how inevitable that home run felt. One of the greatest moments to happen in that ballpark

  15. Was literally talking about him yesterday, my cousin, a Phillies fan, was lamenting their failure (and railing against the Dodgers <3) and was like to win in the postseason you just need random guys going off. And I was like yes, Travis Ishikawa. Who to be fair is one of many, he had the biggest moment but all 3 WS we won because of players stepping up when it mattered most.

  16. My Ishikawa copy pasta:

    In baseball there are certain moments that transcend time and space. In fiction they would be derided as tropes or tired story lines. One could read a story with an unlikely hero and mock it as lazy writing. Here’s the thing; baseball is built on the most unlikely occurrences happening—the David beating the Goliath. We watch this game as much with our hearts as we do with our eyes—and hear it as much with our souls as we do with our ears.

    If you sat down and wrote the script for the 2014 Giants your editor would most certainly reject it as emotional tripe. But we lived it, those moments define the triumph of the human spirit. Case in point Travis Ishikawa. Unheralded during the regular season. Playing out of position. A player that was notch below journeyman is plopped into the storybook plot. A player that battled injuries and self confidence; who battled out of the minor leagues to get to the penultimate stage of the baseball season.

    There, in the batters box, I can imagine him thinking about all of those minor league games. The toil and tribulation of bus rides that last too long and pay that doesn’t go far enough. About all those times he doubted himself and was doubted by others. Those times, walking back into the clubhouse, where a coach or manager was waiting next to his locker to tell him his dream was going to be delayed, again. The shrug and smile that masked his disappointment. The knowing looks of teammates. The rote gestures of goodbye. The mechanical statements suggesting he’d be back; his deep dark thoughts that this was the end of the road. That sickening feeling in his stomach when he felt part of his body breakdown, knowing that the finite time he had to play the game was moving inevitably to the end.

    And then, in a single swing—a physical movement he has performed countless times—catharsis. A solitary moment where he didn’t doubt himself. Where 42,000 people let him know that the before was best left in the past. Where the deceptively difficult act of hitting a round ball with a round bat provided renewed hope that everything in the universe is sometimes right. A moment when the “business” is forgotten about. Truly some hits mean more than others.

    This reminds me of the final stanza in Walt Whitman’s poem O Me! O life! Where he muses about the meaning of life:

    That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

    Ishikawa contributed a verse and completed our powerful play. Out of the infinite possibilities that baseball presents on every pitch, on that night, under the lights, a home run was the only possible outcome.

    Jon Millers call: https://www.mlb.com/video/miller-calls-walk-off-homer-c36821545

  17. After he retired, he would come and work with the young guys for the Giants in spring training. Those guys were talking about hitting walk off home runs. One of the young guys asked Ishikawa “so, have you even hit a walk off home run?”

    “Uh, yeah. Yeah I did”

  18. I complained when he was brought back to the team because 1) We didnt need him at 1st base since Posey was platooning 2) He hit for shit 3) he had never played outfield where we needed some back ups 4) surely there was ANYONE we could have picked up at the end of the season as a potential DH.

    Nope. Made no sense until he hit out.

    Love you Travis.

Leave a Reply