Sept. 18, 1997: When the Giants got the biggest walk-off homer you've never heard of

Dave Tobener

Sept. 18, 1997: When the Giants got the biggest walk-off homer you've never heard of image

It just might be the biggest walk-off home run you've never heard of.

On this day in 1997, on a cool afternoon at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, Brian Johnson homered leading off the bottom of the 12th inning to give the Giants a 6-5 win over the rival Dodgers. The win didn't give the Giants the pennant, or even clinch them a playoff spot. If you're not a fan of either team, chances are you wouldn't remember it at all. But if you mention Brian Johnson's name to a Giants or Dodgers fans, their minds will go directly to that moment. Not just because of the result it produced that day, but because of what it represented in their ongoing rivalry.

MORE: Every MLB team's worst regular-season memory, revisited

After a 94-loss season the year before, the Giants completely overhauled their roster before the '97 season with an eye toward making the playoffs for the first time in seven years. Veterans such as Jeff Kent, J.T. Snow and Darryl Hamilton all contributed to a revamped lineup that had the Giants in first place on July 16, the date they made a relatively minor trade with the Tigers to acquire Johnson for catching depth.

“I showed up at the beginning of a series at Houston in the Astrodome,” Johnson told Sporting News in an email interview. “I was pretty familiar with most of the team. Played against J.T. Snow in college, then we were drafted by the Yankees together. ... Jeff Kent and I played against each other when he was at Cal, but we were not friends mostly because he was the reason we had two massive brawls with them (Johnson played for Stanford). Dusty (Baker) and I had been very close for many years before. He was like a father to me. ... The combination of all this made for an easy transition.”

The Giants' new catcher proved to be more than just depth, playing well enough to grab the starting job and run with it. But as he was hitting his stride, the team started to falter: Their division lead had evaporated, and after a four game losing streak in mid-September the Giants found themselves in second place, two games out of first with just 11 left to play. They returned home to Candlestick for a short, two-game homestand that just happened to be against the team ahead of them in the standings: the Dodgers.

“We weren't playing lights out before we played the Dodgers in that two-game series, but we were prepared emotionally, physically and mentally,” Johnson said. “I remember we were looking ahead to that series as a pivotal one for us. You're not supposed to look ahead, but it is hard not to. We managed it well and focused on the day in front of us, but we also were preparing mentally for the challenge the Dodgers posed for us.”

The first game went to the Giants, as Barry Bonds' first-inning home run (where he did his infamous pirouette on the way to first) was all they would need en route to a 2-1 win. The next game would be the last against the Dodgers that year, so the Giants were going to leave home either tied with LA and in control of their own destiny, or two games out and needing help the rest of the way. 

MORE: Why the Giants could be contenders in 2018

The Giants jumped out to a 5-1 lead only to see the Dodgers tie things up late. The game headed to extra innings, and after Rod Beck worked his way out of a no outs, bases-loaded jam in the top of the 10th, the momentum seemed to swing to the San Francisco dugout. But the Giants still couldn't get the big hit they needed to get them over the top, and the game pushed on.

Enter Johnson. In the bottom of the 12th, the Dodgers turned to reliever Mark Guthrie, a pitcher who'd struck out Johnson three times in four career at-bats.

“I didn't remember facing Guthrie before, but I was swinging well so it didn't matter,” Johnson said. “In my mind I saw 'left hander, average fastball. Stay up the middle and go get him.'" 

He swung at the first pitch, and connected.

“I was focused on getting on base with a double off the wall to the gap,” Johnson said. “My double just happened to get a little higher.”

As Johnson rounded the bases, arms reaching skyward, Candlestick Park exploded in the euphoric roar of 62,000 fans who knew that for all intents and purposes, the Dodgers were finished. The man who had just ended things couldn't hear them, though. 

“I distinctly remember, and this is no exaggeration, once I hit first base all went silent," Johnson said. "It was as if someone had a synthesizer and turned down the crowd noise of 62,000 people screaming like crazy, and turned up the thud of my shoes hitting the dirt. That was all I could hear.”

As he rounded third, Johnson finally saw his teammates waiting for him.

“By the time I hit home plate," he said, "the sound of the crowd was restored and all I felt was the battering of my helmet from my teammates mobbing me.”

BrianJohnsonWalkoff-FTR-Getty-091817.jpg

MORE: Ranking the greatest walk-off home runs in World Series history

The energy from that win propelled the Giants the rest of the way, as they went 6-3 down the stretch and clinched the division on the second-to-last day of the season. They were swept in the NLDS by the Marlins, but that's not what Giants fans think of when it comes to the '97 team. They'll always go back to that game, to that moment, to Brian Johnson. He's still asked about his walk-off homer 20 years later, and it's come to define what was a solid career.

“There was a split second at one point where I had reservations about being remembered so heavily with this moment,” Johnson said. “The voice of my ego inside my head whispered a little and said, 'Dude, I did do some other stuff in my career too, ya know!' This was short-lived, of course. Not my proudest moment, but it happened. I think it lasted for a day.

“After that day I embraced what happened to me more than ever. I never tire of talking about it or being reminded of it. I get embarrassed sometimes because I fear some people might get sick of hearing about it and me as a package. I always enjoy talking about the jam that Rod Beck had just gotten us out of much more than talking about me.”

Johnson would play in just 99 games for the Giants the next season before making stops in Cincinnati, Kansas City, and ironically, Los Angeles. By the time he signed with the Dodgers in 2001, though, most of the guys he helped beat in '97 were gone.

“The first day of spring training, I was working in a drill and here comes Tommy Lasorda driving up in his golf cart. He was talking really loud, saying, 'How could we let that Brian Johnson kid wear the Dodger blue? They called that son of a b— the Dodger Killer! Where is he? Where is the bastard?!' Once I realized what was happening (because I had never met him before), I started laughing and just stood there. We walked over to each other and he gave me a big hug and said, 'Welcome, son. We're glad you're here and you look much better in Dodger blue.'” He only played three games with the Dodgers that year and retired soon after.

MORE: The 10 greatest Giants of all time

Although he played in just 155 games for San Francisco, Johnson's place in Giants' lore will always be secure. The '97 team was the first in a long line of Giants contenders that lasted almost a decade, highlighted by a World Series appearance in 2002. It's a fondly remembered era in San Francisco, and looking back it's easy to point to that home run as the era's defining moment. It announced with authority that the Giants had arrived and weren't going away.

That it's remembered as one of the greatest moments in the franchise's history — a history that spans 134 years, in two cities, with some of the greatest players of all time wearing the uniform — is not lost on Johnson, a Bay Area native who now works as a professional scout for the team.

“To have been a part of one of the greatest moments of the franchise — not my description, but it has been vetted pretty thoroughly, so I humbly accept — amid the backdrop of that time period where baseball was still reeling from the fallout of the 1994 strike? To be a hometown kid that was able to come through in that moment? That is incredible. And ever humbling.”

If you've never heard of Brian Johnson or his home run, ask any Giants fan. They'll tell you all about it, now, 20 years from now, and forever.

Dave Tobener