After dizzying rookie year, Giants Joe Panik didn’t slow down

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — Before October, Hopewell Junction, N.Y., population 2,600, was the home of Joe Panik, John Jay High graduate and pride of St. John’s University.

When he returned to Hopewell Junction in November, he was Joe Panik, World Series hero, the guy who might have saved Game 7 with a diving stop and glove flip to start a double play.

There were some strange sights in Hopewell Junction when the rookie came home, like the signs in town that read, “Honk for Joe Panik.”

“There were actually people who honked,” Panik said. “I was driving by and someone honked. I was like, 'I’m driving the speed limit here! It's not like I'm sitting at a green light!’

“That’s when it kind of hit me, the moment where I thought, 'Wow, I did something different.’”

And now for something completely different, Panik is enjoying his first spring training for the Giants as an entrenched major-league second baseman. The whirlwind of his rise to the majors, the postseason and the World Series parade now belong to Hopewell Junction and Panik family lore.

There is more. In December, Panik got engaged to his high school sweetheart, Brittany Pinto, by dropping to one knee and proposing on Central Park’s Bow Bridge, which, as Panik noted, is often used as a setting for “love movies.”

Lest anyone argue that Panik should have his man card revoked by raising the proposal bar to “Central Park bridge, on one knee,” know that two months later Panik sort of tricked Pinto into going to a Rangers-Coyotes hockey game on Valentine’s night.

They will marry in 2016, presumably after Panik completes his first full season in the majors and gives Hopewell Junction something else to honk about.

The 24-year-old has an odd-year itch to win a second World Series ring.

“When you get that feeling of Game 7, when Pablo (Sandoval) made that catch and we were jumping up and down, that feeling of throwing your glove up in the air, it’s just an incredible feeling of saying you’re the best team and the last one standing,” Panik said. “As a competitor, you want to have that feeling every year.”

Imagine the feeling in Central Park on a late-autumn afternoon.

It was Dec. 17, a day before Pinto’s 24th birthday. She had wanted a day together in Manhattan, which the two had not shared in quite a while: window shopping at Macy’s, a nice dinner and a walk through Central Park.

Panik planned the entire day, but not before visiting the Pinto home and asking her parents for permission to marry their daughter.

The couple hopped on a train in White Plains, to which they had just moved so he could be closer to St. John’s and its training facilities. Pinto said that after nine years of dating Panik, she was 50-50 on whether he would propose on their special day in Manhattan. But then he fooled her the way he might deke a runner.

“We were in the train to the city and I was wondering if he had a ring box in his pocket,” Pinto said. “I didn’t see it. He was so incredibly calm. He showed no sign that he was going to do it and I thought, 'Well, it’ll be a great day anyway.’”

Panik said the ring actually was burning a hole in his pocket, and he wanted to propose right away. He tried waiting for everyone else to clear the bridge, but two women would not budge. They gave him a knowing glance because they understood what was about to happen.

He dropped to one knee, and the deed was done.

Two months later, the couple was in Arizona preparing for spring training when Panik noticed that his beloved New York Rangers were going to play in Phoenix the following week. He asked Pinto if she wanted to go but sheepishly withheld the actual date — Feb. 14.

The day before Valentine’s Day, Pinto wondered how Panik wanted to celebrate. He said something to the effect of, “Um, remember that Rangers-Coyotes game?”

She laughed and said yes — again — because she likes the Rangers, too. They had their lovers’ dinner on Feb. 13 instead.

The future Brittany Panik will spend the season in San Francisco with her fiance, hoping for another playoff run. Perhaps this time she will pay a little more attention. She said she was so nervous during Game 7 in Kansas City that she had no idea Panik had flipped the ball hit by Eric Hosmer to Brandon Crawford until she saw a video on the bus to the airport.

When they returned to Hopewell Junction, both were awed by the town’s love for Panik. Pinto was struck by a change in Panik when he finally understood the responsibilities of whom he had become.

“It was shocking because all the support from home was unbelievable,” she said. “Joe said that having kids look up to you, especially when he went back to his elementary school and high school, he realized, 'I’m a role model to these kids. I was in their shoes, and now I’m a local hero. It’s such an honor.’”