Tournament of happy Giants postseason memories: The Final Four

You people really like double plays. You're also very, very conflicted on the final game of the 2010 World Series. I don't blame you in either instance. We resume our tournament of the happiest moments in Giants postseason history. It's the Final Four. This is probably the biggest bracket of this kind going on this week, so pay attention.

We're down to just one World Series-clinching moment, and that one was victorious by just three votes. Three! Don't you people remember what it's like to get that final out? Probably not. We're soooooooooo spoiled, and it's the best feeeeeeeeling, la la la la la!!! Still, I thought the final four was going to be Wilson/Romo/Pablo/something else. This is March, I guess, where the unexpected becomes the ordinary.

To the Final Four!

The Double Play vs. Brian Wilson saves 2010

One of these years, we'll have a World Series that comes on an instant replay. It will be horrible. It will be glorious. We'll have deserved every second of the wait between review and Series-deciding call.

This comes up now because that's the only complaint I have about Panik-to-Crawford-to-Belt. It wasn't called correctly the first time. Can you imagine not having instant replay? It would have been one of the greatest defensive plays in Series history, but only in our minds. We would have grumbled about the call for decades, kind of like the Braves fans who twitch in their sleep and seethe about Posey being out.

Instead, look at that double play. Perfect in every way. I wonder if Dan Uggla would have m

On the other side, it's Brian Wilson getting Nelson Cruz out on a hanging slider. I know Wilson is supposed to be an enemy right now, but think back to those happier times. There was no way the Giants were supposed to beat the Phillies. There was no way they were supposed to beat the Rangers. They did both with a game or two to spare, never putting us through an elimination game. The pain of Jose Cruz, Bobby Richardson, Loma Prieta, Cody Ransom ... it didn't go away, but here was a postseason that worked.

This was the first time a San Francisco team won the World Series.

On the other hand, it sure was a backup slider! If you're an aesthetically pure sort of person, you're excused for liking The Double Play more. It symbolizes the 2014 Giants -- second baseman who wasn't supposed to be there flips to the homegrown and talented shortstop, who guns it to the homegrown and talented shortstop, and it takes more than a little good fortune to work that well.

Be honest, then, and ask yourself how many times you've seen each, how many times you've rewound each one to take another look.

Buster devours Mat Latos's very existence vs. Travis Ishikawalkoff

Oh, hello, window into your soul. Please, lie down on the couch. Tell me everything.

Posey hitting the grand slam off, I don't know, Kip Wells would have made it pretty far. Sweet 16? Elite 8? It could have come this far, even, considering the Giants were down 0-2 in the series. This grand slam was a great baseball moment, alright.

It's here because you don't like Mat Latos or his face, which reminds you of Mat Latos. He was an outspoken villain in 2010. He broke Dave Flemming's windshield. He signed baseballs that read "I HATE SF." He was using the WWE playbook, and we loved/hated it. Then he gave up the grand slam to cost his team the season, and you could see him stumble back to get the ball. "Ain't no thing ... no big ... you know ... /collapses in heap"

Travis Ishikawa is almost the exact opposite. It wasn't good vs. evil -- it was baseball vs. common sense. His home run is one of the pieces of evidence I use to convince myself that I'm living in a computer simulation and that none of you are real. It's Travis Ishikawa?!?! Listen to Jon Miller's incredulous, well-I-wasn't-exactly-prepared-for-this-dude tone. It's perfect.

You have to choose what kind of person you are. Is baseball better when you're actively crushing your enemies, seeing them driven before you, and hearing the lamentations of their women? Or is it better when you're dumbfounded and gobsmacked, unable to process what just happened, but knowing you'll never forget that it did?

Follow-up question after re-watching that Conan the Barbarian clip: What's more ridiculous, Travis Ishikawa coming back to hit a pennant-winning home run, or the actor who delivered that line becoming a huge box-office star and Governor of California? Probably the latter. We should appreciate that more and wonder exactly what in the heck happened, there. It's the Travis Ishikawa of real life, only stranger.

Vote. And regret nothing.