I pitched for my high school varsity baseball team for two years–each year winning the New York State Class AA state championship–before attending a NCAA Division III college and pitching there for four years as well. In all that time, in fact, in all the time I played on a full size baseball field, I yielded only one home run. It was to Joe Panik, today of the World Champion San Fransisco Giants.
Just how good I was in high school and college is, I suppose, in the eye of the beholder, but I faced a lot of hitters with a lot of talent and managed to keep them all in the park. Except Panik. And frankly, after watching him get drafted in the first round and watching him develop into a major league starter and the World Series hero he is today, it’s a source of pride.
Panik went to St. Johns after graduating high school and I ran into him one summer while he was playing for the Yarmouth-Dennis Red Sox of the prestigious Cape Cod league and I was working near by. We spoke for a few minutes and I asked him if he remembered our encounter. He said he did and I believe him: that hanging curveball was the difference in a 1-0 game his school won against the defending state champions.
A couple years later Panik went 19th overall, and a couple years after that he debuted for the Giants. Trailing the powerhouse Dodgers in the NL West, the Giants were just looking for some consistency after a half season of fairly atrocious second base play. They looked to Panik, hitting .321 in AAA at the time of his call up, and got a whole lot more.
In 73 games with San Fran, Panik hit .305 and cemented his role as the two hitter on the best team in world. He is now a pretty safe bet to spend at least the next few seasons as the starting second basemen–the high-profile, well-liked, well-respected, talented, successful second basemen on one of baseball’s best and most popular teams.
He’s welcome. I didn’t have to float that curveball up there for him.
(Just kidding)
Panik hit two homers this season, one in the regular season and one in the playoffs. The former came off of Doug Fister while the latter was in the NLCS off Adam Wainwright. How about that.
-Max Frankel
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