Diary of a Diehard

During the 1999 season, the Arizona Diamondbacks attempted to reach out to the community and let them get to know some of the players. They did this through promotions with several local businesses. There was ice cream with Mat Williams at Ben and Jerrys. There were auto parts with Tony Womack at Checker Auto. And there were several players at various Nissan dealerships around the valley. For each one of these I would take the kids so they had an opportunity to meet the players and realize that they were the same as any other father when they are off the diamond. It was my hope that they would come to understand that you can appreciate players but you don’t need to idolize them. What I had not anticipated was how this series of appearances would impact our lives and the fortunes of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

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As the Diamondbacks continue their week long road trip to California, I am left to watch the game from home rather than the ball park. Tonight’s game was being shown on 3TV, The Place With More Stuff. I sat down and settled in for what should have been a quick game with Omar Daal on the mound. In his first start, Omar pitched well but did not get much run support. This led to the first extra innings game of the year for the Diamondbacks. In that game, they outlasted the Phillies and ended up winning in eleven innings. This time, the Diamondbacks were playing at San Diego and Omar looked very good pitching his heart out only to see his one run lead be erased in the ninth inning on a home run. This led to another extra innings game. When the Diamondbacks came up in the thirteenth inning, a couple of hours after Whitney’s bed time, she turned to me with half-opened eyes and asked, “How come Omar Daal has to play thirteen innings when all the rest of the pitchers only have to play nine? Is he being punished for something?” Watching Ed Sprague hit a game winning home run as the first batter in the bottom of the thirteenth inning, I turned to Whitney and said, “No, I think we are the ones being punished.”

With the Diamondbacks on the road for a week, I will not have the opportunity to hang out at Bank One Ballpark. Instead, I have to hurry home after work if I am going to watch a game on television. Now usually I begin to complain that it is just not the same as at the ballpark but Trina has eliminated that phrase from my vocabulary. With my new Bank One Ballpark seats in the living room, I now have the perfect place to watch the game. After work, I ran in, grabbed my seat cushion and headed for my new favorite chair. There I sat and watched as the Diamondbacks played long ball with the San Diego Padres. It was great and I was really feeling pretty good about things. As the game ended, I got out of my chair, collected my seat cushion and turned to leave. There I was met by the steely glare of my wife. Her eyebrows were curled and she had a snarl on her face. Her arms were crossed and she impatiently tapped her foot. “And who do you think is going to clean up all of those peanut shells off of the living room floor?” I must have looked dumbfounded. In 171 games at Bank One Ballpark, I had never been asked this question. I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. Looking around the floor I noticed gum wrappers, peanut and sunflower shells, and two empty water battles strewn about my seats. I guess I somehow figured the same cleaning crew at the ballpark would take care of it. I was obviously wrong. I spent the next hour on my hands and knees with the dustbuster trying to clean things up. Life is so much easier during a homestand.

Today was the first Sunday game for the Diamondbacks. It was also the first Bullpen Buddy day. Bullpen Buddies is a program whereby 75 lucky children are able to go down into the Diamondbacks bullpen before the game to meet with two players and get their autographs. The children must be 53 inches or shorter in order to participate. It just so happened that I had Dakota with me and he met these qualifications. Being the brave little kid he was, he went down by himself and met with Greg Colbrunn and Danny Klassen. I stood above the meeting and watched as Dakota shook each of their hands and had them autograph his baseball. After the meeting, he stood in the bullpen first at the pitchers mound scratching the dirt around the rubber and practicing his pitching motion. The players were very amused at him as he did his best major league impression. After a few minutes of that, he made his way to the other end to brush off the plate and take his batting stance. It was evident that he was enjoying his time on the field and felt quite at home there. Once the activity was over, the Diamondbacks gave each child a T-shirt and sent them back to be reunited with their parents. It was a day Dakota will not forget. All during the game and on the way home he recounted the fun he had with the players.

At times the players seem so distant. The everyday fan has little or nothing in common with these multi-millionaires. It is very hard to find common ground between fan and player. Rarely is there an occasion where player and fan connect on a human level of friends. My nine-year-old daughter Tiffany has such a relationship. Tiffany has quickly become the our most ardent supporter of the team. Each game she attends, she goes out of her way to study the game to understand it better. Through this study, she has identified players that she admires. Please note I said admire, not worship. I have been very conscientious about teaching her that these players are merely men like her dad or her teacher. They are not someone above or below any other in society. They merely have a great job. In the past year, Tiffany has watched as the Diamondbacks struggled through the first half of the season before trading for Matt Mantei. She quickly began to understand the role of a closer and the talent that Matt possessed. One day she sought him out to talk with him and have him autograph a ball. As they talked, it was obvious that they would become friends. From that time forward, they would greet each other before games and Mantei would come over to talk to Tiffany. This off-season, Tiffany saved her money and when she had enough, she asked that I would take her to a card shop to purchase a Matt Mantei baseball card. Today, armed with her card, she waited patiently for Mantei to emerge from the dugout. As he made his way out to the field, he was intent in not being disturbed and blocked out the crowd around him. Just as he was about to go into the bullpen, he saw Tiffany. He stopped and came over to see her. They stood there and talked for a couple of minutes. She returned to her seat next to me beaming from ear to ear. After a long off- season, baseball season had started for Tiffany. She was back at the ballpark and her friend was there.

Of all the children, Tiffany is by far and away my biggest baseball fan. Last year, she and I attended approximately 35 games. At each one, she would analyze the game and the players. I spent countless innings explaining things such as pitch count, how the batter tells if the pitcher is throwing a fastball or a breaking ball, and the finer art of scorekeeping. For her birthday last year, all she wanted was a Diamondbacks jersey and a scorebook. I of course obliged trying hard to nurture her interest in baseball. Given all the games she has gone to, she has gotten to know a lot about the Diamondbacks. Tonight, she proved herself to those sitting around us. Armando Reynoso was pitching which meant we had a lot of time to talk. His deliberate delivery gave us an opportunity to play a few games. The first game, I would say a uniform number and Tiffany would have to tell me who the Diamondback play was who wore it. She did very well and even surprised me when she told me which player wore that jersey number in previous years. Once that game was over, we reversed it naming names and having to call out uniform numbers. By the third or fourth inning, we had all the people around us playing along. After the seventh inning stretch, Tiffany made the game tougher. Starting with the number one, you had to put all the players in order of the uniform numbers. I have to admit, she stumped half the section with that game. When it comes to baseball information, Tiffany is a sponge.

Mallorie won the ticket lottery tonight. This meant she got to go to the game with me. This irritated Dakota to no end. He seems to think that he should go to every game. I had to promise him I would get him a baseball at the game before he would let me leave the house. I now understand the pressure the mountain man faced knowing he would not be welcomed back at his tent unless he successfully returned from the hunt. Mallorie and I arrived at the game early in order to watch batting practice. I stood along the third base side near the bullpen watching as Mallorie attempted to get players to autograph her baseball. While standing there, Greg Colbrunn hit a shot down the left field line coming right at us. Seeing the velocity on the ball, I felt it would be prudent to not try and catch it with my hand. Instead, I stuck my hat out to catch the ball. The ball hit my hat with such force that it was merely deflected. I continued to watch the ball ricochet from my hat to the right shoulder of a little old man who must have been seventy. He will probably be ok. As the Diamondbacks finished, the Philadelphia Phillies began their batting practice. With Ron Gant at the plate, he hit a bullet down the third base line. I again held out my hat. This time, the ball landed squarely inside nearly ripping it to shreds. When it was done though, I had a ball for Dakota just like I promised.

For most fans, the second game of the season is always a let down. After all the festivities surrounding opening day, there is usually nothing planned for game 2. Around baseball, attendance has been down after opening day and so it was for the Diamondbacks as well. There were empty seats everywhere, except for around me. I was packed in like a sardine. Tonight I had Whitney with me. She usually goes to only a handful of games during the season and now she has not missed a game. Of course it helped when Trina packed sticker books for her to do when the game got boring. My definition of boring and Whitney’s definition seem to differ. She had the stickers out during the national anthem. After getting her a Lil’ Diamondbacks kids meal, she was satisfied for about half an inning. It was at this time that she took interest in keeping score. I spent the rest of the game sitting beside my six year old and teaching her the finer points of scorekeeping. We had great fun and she worked on her math skills. By the end of the game, she was keeping the score book and I was relegated to playing with the stickers.

Opening day for the Diamondbacks finally arrived. I could hardly wait to get down to the ballpark. I had gotten tickets for the whole family. It is the first time anyone besides Trina and Dakota had been to opening day. Not wanting to be late, we left for the ballpark at 3:30. I am fully aware that it only takes 20 minutes to get to Bank One Ballpark and the gates do not open until 5:00 but I wanted to make sure we got there in plenty of time. It was a good thing we left when we did. The Phoenix Suns have a game at America West Arena at the same time as the Diamondbacks play at BOB. Traffic was a nightmare. We finally made it to the gates with 5 minutes to spare. As the gates opened, we made our way down to our seats and then to the edge of the playing field. As batting practice began, a ball flew into left field and was caught by Tony Womack. He came over and gave the ball to Dakota. Dakota was very impressed and couldn’t stop talking about it all night. The kids watched in awe as fireworks were lit in center field and Air Force jets flew overhead during the national anthem. They could hardly contain their excitement and the game had not even started yet. Dakota was a handful while the Diamondbacks were at bat but he would sit perfectly still when Randy Johnson was on the mound. It was a great way to spend an evening as a family. Of course it helped that the Diamondbacks won.