Diary of a Diehard

For the past 127 days, 11 hours and 43 minutes I have been pacing the floor waiting for this day to finally arrive. I suffered through 4 long games watching the “Great Troy Tulowitzki” and his cronies play in a World Series that should have included the Arizona Diamondbacks. I struggled as Major League Baseball announced Jake Peavy had beaten Brandon Webb in the Cy Young award voting even though Webb’s number in 2007 were better than they were in 2008 when he won the award. I danced and cheered as Micah Owings won his Silver Slugger and Orlando Hudson won his second Gold Glove. But through it all my mind was squarely focused on this day.

Continue reading ‘And So It Begins…’ »

Now that pitchers and catchers have begun reporting to Spring Training I was really hoping that the focus could get back between the foul lines. It has been a long off season filled with headlines surrounding the pharmaceutical side of baseball. Beginning with the Mitchell Report and continuing through the Brian McNamee / Roger Clemens war and now culminating with yet another round of Congressional hearings this has been a very dark time for baseball. And while Bud Selig and Donald Fehr proclaim that baseball is taking working measures to clean up the game; every day brings about more accusations and innuendo. Now it seems like no matter where you go, if you are identified as a baseball fan you are immediately questioned of how you feel about the usage of steroids and what it has done to the game.

Continue reading ‘Am I Changing?’ »

As a kid growing up I remember February as a month of strange celebrations. It began on February 12 when we celebrated the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. That was followed shortly by Valentine’s which taught us at a very early age that the best way to a girls heart was through a fancy card and some candy. This was of course augmented as we got older and had to add expensive jewelry to the list of things that women find romantic. Once Valentine’s Day was over we moved on to February 22 when we celebrated George Washington’s birthday. In school we made stove-pipe hats and wore fake beards to begin the month and ended wearing powdered wigs and making our teeth look wooden. It was an interesting month to say the least. At some point the powers that be decided that the United States had more than two presidents and hence there should be a federal holiday that would recognize all the accomplishments of the Executive branch of the government. This resulted in the establishment of President’s Day. And in order for federal employees to be assured of a long weekend the holiday would always fall on the third Monday of February.

Continue reading ‘If I Were President’ »

At Fan Fest the Arizona Diamondbacks described some of the activities they have planned for the upcoming season. The first weekend series in April has been identified as the Tenth Anniversary Celebration. For each of the games on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday the Diamondbacks have planned something special to recognize the team, the employees, and the fans who have helped define the first decade of Arizona Diamondbacks baseball. It’s hard to believe that it will have been 10 years since the Diamondbacks began play on March 31, 1998 against the Colorado Rockies. A little research last year found that there were only two active players remaining of those who saw action during that inaugural game; one with the Arizona Diamondbacks and one with the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies representative is still with Colorado and still playing the same position. He has been the face of the Rockies for a long time, Mr. Todd Helton. The Diamondbacks player who is still active is no longer with Arizona but was a Diamondback on two separate occasions. Last season he played for the St. Louis Cardinals posting an 8-1 record with a 2.18 ERA; he is Russell Paul Springer.

Continue reading ‘A Vote for All Times’ »

You would think that today would be one of those days where you begin to channel Uncle Remus from the Disney Movie Song of the South. I fully expected to get up, put on my best work clothes and head out the door and begin singing Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Da whereby Mr. Blue Bird would perch on my shoulder and together we musically account for a “wonderful day”. I mean this is the day I had been waiting for since October. Pitchers and catchers are now in Tucson and at the Kino Sports Park you would be hearing the crack of leather as they began the first day of drills to open the 2008 season. Why then am I not jumping up and down with excitement? Well there are probably two reasons for that.

Continue reading ‘A Day Without Baseball…’ »

Happy Webbruary! There is nothing more rewarding that when you finally get to turn the page to the calendar and realize that the year has flown by and you are now in the month of Webbruary. What is that, your calendar doesn’t have a Webbruary? Well it sounds to me like you got yourself a defective calendar and I would place the blame squarely on the Hallmark Corporation because we all know they are the evil geniuses behind all calendar conspiracies. I say that because Hallmark has more to gain by changing the calendar than any other organization in the world. If you don’t believe me I challenge you to go into a Hallmark store and see how many different greeting cards they make and for what occasions. The last time I was in a Hallmark store looking for a card I would have sworn I found one congratulating my dog for successfully completing obedience training. I had no idea Dog Obedience Training Day was even a holiday but according to Hallmark it is. But I think in the case of Webbruary even the Hallmark people were surprised.

Continue reading ‘The Webbruary Report’ »

A few days ago I happened to walk past the side of the refrigerator where we normally keep the calendar. There scrawled across various days are the activities we need to be aware of. With four kids at home it is usually a logistical nightmare to try and manage everyone’s schedule. To Trina’s credit she is a mastermind at keeping track of what everyone is doing and where they need to be at any given moment. The calendar of course has been updated to reflect all the Diamondbacks games both home and away so that Trina and the kids know whether I will be home (away games) or away (home games). Usually I don’t pay much attention to the calendar as I am pretty oblivious to what is going on with regards to the kids lives. It is not that I am a neglectful father; quite the contrary I like to be involved with the kids activities (unless there is a game of course). That is usually the problem (the problem is not that there are games, the problem is that I like to be involved). The family usually cringes whenever I get involved as something usually goes unexplainably wrong and I swear it isn’t my fault. Well, not completely my fault. I will admit, I am single-handedly responsible for being banned from the science fair. But really who would have expected that I could possibly have gotten an entire grade of school children to believe that the earth is flat just by using a quarter? That’s a different subject and much too little baseball to be discussed here; let’s get back to the subject.

Continue reading ‘Cupid Draw Back Your Bow’ »

When the Hollywood writers went on strike several months ago there were many who thought that it would be extremely detrimental to the country as networks would scramble to find programming that would fill the airwaves with shows that would be entertaining and interesting to the general public. I too wondered what would happen. Outside of baseball I don’t really watch that much television so I wasn’t sure how much a writer’s strike would have on me personally but my family on the other hand was a different story. We’ve had satellite television for nearly our entire marriage. The satellite dish era began when we lived in Idaho where without such a device you were able to tune exactly two stations in. Now I would describe the area as isolated and rural but growing up there we lived in the second largest city in Idaho with a population of 40,000. Hard to believe that the entire population of that town would fit within Chase Field and still have enough room that Rally Sally could dance with her flags in the upper deck. In those days satellite television was a necessity if you wanted any programming choices. Of course this was in the golden age of satellite before paid programming and scrambling. Not only were you able to find shows to watch but at the times you wanted to watch them. You were also seeing the feeds as they were being shot without editing which always made for great entertainment as you watched a national newscaster picking his nose or a female anchor adjusting herself so she did not look so lopsided on camera.

Continue reading ‘As the Baseball Turns’ »

A sure sign that baseball is nearly ready to begin is the frequency in which I hear from the Arizona Diamondbacks. During the dark off-season there may be weeks or months between communications with the team. With each passing day counting down the time when pitchers and catchers report, I hear from the team more and more often whether it be via e-mail or postal mail. Take today for example, I actually received both an email and a letter. The email arrived in my inbox to let me know that the Diamondbacks on-line team shop was having a sale on batting practice jerseys and hats. This was extremely important since the Diamondbacks batting practice jersey is also their Spring Training jersey. Any fan worth their weight in peanuts and Crackerjack is going to want to be dressed appropriately when attending a Cactus League game. I already have one of the Cool Base jerseys and I love it. It is soft and very comfortable. So comfortable that I made it my pajama top. There is just something comforting about putting on a Diamondbacks jersey before sliding into bed. You are pretty much guaranteed a night filled with great dreams about post season success and World Series championships. I initially tried using a batting practice hat as a sleeping attire accessory but Trina complained that when I rolled over the bill of my cap kept smacking her in the head. It didn’t wake me up so I wasn’t exactly sure what the problem was but after yet another ultimatum by my wife and a lecture about how I love the Diamondbacks more than her, I relented and now take the hat off prior to her coming to bed.

Continue reading ‘Planning a Road Trip’ »