Diary of a Diehard

When I was a small child I used to watch Captain Kangaroo on television religiously. Mostly I like to watch just so Mr. Moose would drop a million ping pong balls on the captain but there were other interesting segments on that show too. The Captain would always read a story each episode and one in particular that remember was called Caps for Sale which was about a hat salesman who had his hats stolen by a bunch of monkeys. This was kind of traumatic for me as I was always afraid some band of rogue monkeys would swoop down and take my baseball hat. As I’ve grown older, I have related more and more to the cap salesman. In fact, when the Diamondbacks changed their colors negating my 54 hat collection to that of old relic; I felt very similar to the cap salesman who looked up to see the monkeys wearing his hats in the trees. Today was yet another in a long line of monkeys reaching down to snatch the hat off my head.

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After the inaugural 1998 season, management made a decision that they needed to change their plans to take an aggressive approach to building a winning baseball franchise in Phoenix. During that off-season they began to stock pile players who were proven winners. It was immediately clear that Jerry Colangelo was not just looking for hired guns; he was looking for players with character and a winning tradition. Much has been made about the Randy Johnson signing that year as has the signing of Steve Finley and the trade for Luis Gonzalez. What is somewhat lost in the mix is the addition of Todd Stottlemyre. Some of this may be the fact that Stottlemyre had a series of bad luck befall him and his availability was somewhat limited due to injuries. What a lot of fans don’t understand is the intangibles that Todd brought to the Diamondbacks. His clubhouse attitude and willingness to play through pain were a huge part to the success that Arizona saw in 1999. And while he had a partially torn rotator cuff, Stottlemyre still was able to contribute and was rewarded as the pitcher who won the first play-off game in franchise history. Unfortunately this would be his crowning moment in a Diamondbacks uniform and the injuries would pile up making his stay seem less valuable than it truly was. The Diamondbacks connection with Todd Stottlemyre has had additional benefits that may or may not have occurred otherwise.

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One aspect of the new ownership group and front office staff that I really like is the openness they show in communicating with the fans. Diamondbacks President Derrick Hall epitomizes this new philosophy by taking time out of his busy day to host an online chat on the Diamondbacks web site. I try to never miss one of these chats. On the one hand I like to keep my finger on the pulse of Diamondbacks fans and these chats serve as a pretty good barometer of where things are going. The members that attend these chats tend to be some of the more diehard fans. Trina says the reason I attend these is to be among my people. I have no idea what that means and I just don’t have the energy to try and understand where her mind is at. The second reason I go to these is just so that I can continue to pester the Diamondbacks front office with questions. Where else do you get an opportunity to converse with decision makers for a Major League Baseball team? When I arrive for a chat I am not one of those guys who quietly sit in the back of the room and just listen. No I tend to have to get actively involved.

Continue reading ‘Another Month, Another Chat’ »

Going into this week the Arizona Diamondbacks had only one player eligible for salary arbitration that was not signed. The player was newly anointed left fielder Eric Byrnes. Byrnes came to the Diamondbacks last season after brief stints in Colorado and Baltimore. Many said the Diamondbacks were taking a risk as Byrnes stock was definitely on the slide. General Manager Josh Byrnes thought the risk was worth it and offered a one year contract to Eric. The Diamondbacks were rewarded with consistent hitting, highlight reel fielding, and a fiery attitude that was infectious in the clubhouse. Eric Byrnes was clearly the best and most consistent player on the Diamondbacks last season. He filled the gap in centerfield and provided needed experience around an ever increasing younger team. With the departure of Luis Gonzalez to the Los Angeles Dodgers and the promotion of Chris Young from Tucson to Arizona to play centerfield, Eric Byrnes was asked to move to left. His attitude was very team focused as he agreed to play whatever position would best help. With such a positive influence both on and off the field, many wondered whether the Diamondbacks would sign Byrnes to a long term deal. Eric himself has commented this off-season that he would like to become a permanent fixture in Arizona. But with arbitration looming on the horizon, the Diamondbacks just could not seem to come to an agreement on contract parameters. When arbitration figures were announced, Byrnes was asking for just over $5 million for the 2007 season while the Diamondbacks offered $4.25 million. With such a relatively small difference in numbers, it was assumed that the sides would come to an agreement. That hadn’t happened though, at least not until today.

Continue reading ‘The Diamondbacks Have Been Byrned’ »

While many would argue that a sure sign of spring is Groundhog Day, I have found a more reliable indicator. You can always tell Spring Training is upon us when teams announce who they will be inviting to Spring Training. Today the Arizona Diamondbacks released their invitee list to Spring Training for non-roster players. This is both an exciting and frustrating time for me each year. It is exciting because it means I have survived yet another long off-season and in just a few short days pitchers and catchers will begin to arrive in Tucson to start preparations for another baseball season. It is frustrating because after patiently waiting by my mailbox and pestering my mailman to the point where he is now talking about a career change, I did not get an invitation. As I walked back to the house dejected after another day without a formal invitation, I began to realize I could be Cinderella. I’m not talking about the ending of that story when Cinderella gets the prince and the whole “happily ever after” part. No I am talking about Cinderella – The Early Years.

Continue reading ‘I Feel Like Cinderella’ »

Today the Arizona Diamondbacks announced an enhanced phone number for fans wanting to buy season tickets, group tickets, or suite tickets. According to the press release the goal is to give Diamondbacks fans a more direct line to ticket representatives eliminating any potential delays that could occur by going through the regular ticket purchasing system. This is such a cool idea. I feel like Commissioner Gordon on the old Batman television show. I now have a direct line into the Diamondbacks that I can call for ticket stuff. I can definitely see this as a jumping off point to all kinds of things. It started my mind racing as I thought about additional features and functions that could be added to this service.

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I am not much of a football fan. Even when the NFL is in the midst of the post-season I can’t get too excited about it. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about a league whose season only lasts 17 weeks and teams are only required to play once a week and even then they need a week off. Today is the pinnacle of football as it is Super Bowl Sunday. This game has become a spectacle and a huge media type. The pre-game show starts several hours before the game and as viewers we are shown clips from eons ago that have little or no bearing on the game of the day. We are enlightened not only with a player’s life story but also the life story of friends and family members. During one segment we heard from important people in the life of one of the players playing in Super Bowl XLI who had the game dedicated to them by the player. For most of these it was a parent or special family member. I give Marvin Harrison some credit as his special person was his high school geometry teacher. I’ve never heard of anyone dedicating anything to a high school geometry teacher so that was pretty original. I decided at that point that if I am ever arrested and interviewed on television as I am led away in handcuffs I am going to dedicate that moment to my high school geometry teacher. So like countless others, I sat there on my couch waiting for the Super Bowl and more importantly the Super Bowl commercials to begin.

Continue reading ‘So What, It’s Still Football’ »

Quite regularly Trina and I meet people and begin talking to them. Through these conversations we get to know each other. Somewhere along the line the subject of baseball comes up (I know real shocking). As we start to talk about baseball the subject of the Arizona Diamondbacks comes up (I know, again real shocking). At this point things get kind of animated as I start to describe the upcoming season or reminisce about previous seasons. Soon they have typecast me as some kind of fanatic which as near as I can tell is a word derivative of “fan” and “addict”. Trina has also used that term to describe me but she normally leaves the “fan” word out of her description. The next thing that usually comes out of people’s mouths is, “have you ever seen the movie Fever Pitch?” Now I don’t get that. How can we be having a perfectly normal conversation about the national pastime and then make some quantum leap to whether I had ever seen a movie that came out in 2004 with a limited box office return. Where did that come from? For the longest time I had no idea what the movie was even about though from the title I guessed it had something to do with baseball. Finally a year ago my kids bought that movie for me to watch while I was recovering from shoulder surgery. I watched it but still didn’t quite get why people kept asking me if I had seen the movie.

Continue reading ‘I’m Not an Addict’ »

Groundhog Day is an interesting tradition. I’ve never quite understood where we got the notion that a furry rodent was capable of climate prognostication. I consider myself to have a fairly vivid imagination but even I could not come up with a story believable enough to get people to buy into a chubby hibernating woodchuck telling them when winter is over. But here we are celebrating a holiday with just such a premise. You just gotta love this country. Growing up in Idaho I looked forward to Groundhog Day and prayed that the little rascal would not see his shadow and spring would be here. In Idaho winter seems to last an eternity. I once attended an Independence Day parade where it snowed so warm weather and seeing grass was something that was high on my importance list. Since moving to Arizona, Groundhog Day has become less important in my life. Normally the difference between winter and spring is about 9 degrees in temperature. The concept of Groundhog Day was still intriguing and I wondered what would happen if we happened to change the event to predict baseball instead of weather.

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