Diary of a Diehard

After an emotion filled day yesterday, I am spent today. I could’t do anything if I wanted to. But that didn’t seem to be an excuse for Trina. She had me up early for my annual event of preparing the taxes. Exactly one day after my W2 arrives in the mail, I am required to have the taxes done. This year I have an incentive. Trina and I have an agreement. If I get them done and ready to be filed before the first of February, I can have a personalized Arizona Diamondbacks jersey. Well, she should have said that before. I will guarantee the IRS will have them before the clock strikes midnight. My hands fly through the forms, my mind a steel trap. Income items listed, columns totalled. Deductions identified, figures looked up in the tax tables. Ten hours later, I look up and see that it is no longer daylight but the taxes are finished. Now, I wonder which jersey I should get?

I came home from work, relatively relaxed knowing that the work week was now behind me. I always look forward to the weekends and being able to lounge around. I was surprised when Trina met me at the door, a pained look on her face. It’s time she said. What? Not now, not yet! I sure hadn’t planned it like this. My mind began to race. Did we have everything? Were the kids taken care of, how are you feeling? I ran around gathering everything up just as we had planned. I then got Trina into the car and we squealed out of the subdivision. I had the route all planned out in order to make the best time. I even had my excuses laid out in case the police pulled us over for speeding. Things were going like clock work. We made it in record time, even Mario Andretti would have been proud of my driving prowess. I helped Trina out of the car and we went into the registration area. I left her in good hands. I was so nervous. I don’t know why, I had been through this before but still my heart was racing. Maybe a trip to the gift shop would calm me down. I wandered up and down the aisles but my mind was not on shopping. I kept thinking about Trina and what she was going through right now. I went back to check on her when I was greeted at the door by one of the attendants. He shook my hand and congratulated me. I thanked him and went in to see Trina. There she was, tired but relieved. There in her arms was the most precious thing I had seen this year. She gently handed it to me and lovingly said, “Congratulations, you now have two fully paid season tickets to the Arizona Diamondbacks.” As I held the receipt in my hands, I could have just cried.

Since my childhood, I have always had a love of the game of baseball. Growing up in a small town in Idaho, I would spend each summer shagging balls for the local Pioneer League team, the Idaho Falls Angels. For every five foul balls I retrieved I got a snow cone, what a deal. I would watch baseball on television and envy all those who were in attendance. When we moved to Arizona, I attended as many spring training games as I could. It was great, but I was still left wanting more as the teams departed to their respective cities and I was left watching the Phoenix Firebirds. Finally the Diamondbacks came to town and I had something to look forward to. I have religiously followed the team and been there every step of the way as this franchise has grown. I am getting very antsy now that spring training is less than a month away. I am scanning spring training schedules getting a list of games I want to attend. I’m still not sure when I am going to get any work done as it seems I will be gone nearly every afternoon to a game somewhere in the valley.

There are times when a father has to do the right thing instead of the fun thing. Last week, Ashley and Mallorie came home with Pinewood Derby cars. Dakota was extremely impressed and wanted a car of his own. For five days straight, all I heard was, “Dad, I want a car.” Now I can usually withstand Dakota’s inquisitive nature, but this time he was relentless. So off we went to the store to buy a block of wood and start carving. The more I worked on it, the more work there was to do. Before I knew it, I had put in several late nights sanding wood, painting, polishing wheels and axles. When it was done, I stood back and admired my work. This was probably the only Arizona Diamondbacks ’32 coupe in existence. With its teal body, purple exhaust pipes, and copper mag wheels, it looked pretty cool. To top it off, I had snake decals with Snake Eyes scrolled across the back. Tonight was the big night of the race. As we brought Snake Eyes out, everyone’s mouth dropped open. As the night went on, we raced car after car. Each time we were victorious. I was beginning to think that we would match the Diamondbacks 1999 win record. It was a glorious night until the unthinkable happened. The starter dropped our car on the way to the starting line for the final race. A headlight and one wheel broke. Dakota stood there in shock. His two-year-old eyes filled with tears. I consoled him and told him we would race even with the broken parts. In the final race, Snake Eyes rolled down the track on three wheels neck and neck with its competitor. At the end, it edged into the lead as it crossed the finish line and rolled into victory lane. Like Todd Stottlemyre, the Snake Eyes car overcame injury to head into the play-offs. This time, instead of losing on a Todd Pratt home run, the Diamondbacks were victorious. I brought it home and set it on my desk, a remembrance of the time I spent with Dakota racing small wooden cars in a church gymnasium. It doesn’t get much better than that.

It has been an interesting day to say the least. In Scottsdale, the Phoenix Open golf tournament is being held and several of us from work decided to go. The tournament doesn’t actually start until Thursday but today was the celebrity Skins game. Playing were former Toronto Blue Jays infielder and Phoenix Suns basketball coach Danny Ainge, legendary rocker Alice Cooper, and the Diamondbacks Randy Johnson and Matt Williams. With three baseball players and a guy that tears heads off of chickens, how could I resist going. Besides, this would be the perfect opportunity to try and get a picture of Matt Williams without his hat. Matt is about the only Diamondback player who would need no touch up to transform into a Chia head. I’m figuring it would save me countless hours of airbrushing if I could just get him to take his hat off. My friend Mike Lee brought a digital camera and we followed the golfers all around the course. When Matt made a fantastic shot or when he choked a shot, I did my best to get the crowd to react so that Matt would remove his hat. He did twice during the tournament. The first time, we were standing behind some old lady with a beehive hair-do blocking our view. By the time we pushed the lady out of the way, it was to late. The second time, we had been filming Matt’s every move. The minute we stop to check the battery life, bam! he takes his hat off. I yell to Mike to roll but by the time we got the camera in position, the hat was back in place. At the eighteenth green, we waited patiently as the golfers ended their rounds and began to walk by. Matt was very gracious and stopped to sign autographs for many of the fans who were there. He posed to have pictures taken with everyone who asked. Mike and I made our way to the front of the crowd and Matt stopped right next to us signing a ball for a small child. I politely asked if we could take his picture and he obliged. I asked if he would remove his hat. He answered, “Sorry, I only take it off for private parties.” Bummer, a whole day and an entire 8 MM tape later, I have a lot of pictures of Matt Williams in a black golf hat and a real good close-up picture of an old lady with a beehive hair-do being shoved out of the way by eager paparazzi. My quest continues.

Tonight, Mallorie notified us that there was an orientation for all incoming Freshman at the local high school and oh by the way we were supposed to attend. Did she mention that it started in 10 minutes? I would have gotten upset, but this has become a normal occurrence in our house and I have come to expect it. I keep telling Trina this is the reason I had to have a Camaro Z28 that will do 150 MPH. Trina still doesn’t buy it but at least it gives me an excuse to squeal the tires now and again. We arrived at the school with 3 minutes to spare. I have always thought I should work for Federal Express not only do you get to drive real fast, you get to wear those cool shorts in the summer. The orientation was held in the auditorium. The meeting started with everyone rising for the National Anthem. It was then that I realized that song was the second most recognized song my kids know after Take Me Out to the Ballgame. People may say baseball is not educational but I beg to differ. Not only do you learn math skills by keeping score, and reading skills from watching the scoreboard, you also learn music appreciation. In fact, there is so much learning going on while you attend a baseball game, the schools should be offering credit. I may even suggest that extra credit be given for perfect attendance. As the song ended, I had the uncontrollable urge to yell play ball but I knew if I did, Trina would wring my neck.

I sat in front of the television and tried desperately to get interested in the National Football League play-offs. I had missed the morning game but was able to see the NFC Championship game. The game began with the Tampa Bay Devil Rays roughing up the St. Louis Cardinals starting pitching for 3 runs. The Cardinals quickly came back in the bottom of the inning to score 3 themselves. The game remained tied until Tampa Bay threw one back, back, back, it’s out of the end zone! The Cardinals lead 5-3. The new found offensive power of the Devil Rays paid off when they scored three more runs to lead 6-5. This lead lasted until the bottom of the ninth with St. Louis down to their final out. Here’s the pitch, its back, way back down the line, it’s outta here! The St. Louis Cardinals defeat the Tampa Bay Devil Rays by the score of 11-6. Strange as it seems, 15 Major League Baseball teams scored more than the St. Louis Rams during a game last season and none of them are going to the Super Bowl.

Last year, the Diamondbacks implemented a new promotional program called the QuePasa.com crew. This group of individuals would wander around the stadium and attempt to entertain the fans between innings. There were eight or ten of these guys and girls. They had ring toss games where one of the QuePasa.com guys would wear a batting helmet with a bat stuck to the top and you the fans would try to throw a donut on top of their heads. In most cases, these guys were just real annoying since they would throw things into the stands which caused people to get whacked with shirts, donuts, basketballs, etc. If you were lucky enough to have one of these things thrown your direction, it usually resulted in 800 kids crawling over your seat to try and catch them before the prize got to you. Today, the Diamondbacks announced they are holding try-outs for the QuePasa.com crew at the end of February. I wonder if it would be possible to get Tonja Harding to put out a hit on these guys.

All winter long, we have heard about Ken Griffey Jr. and his desire to be traded. First it was that he wanted to be closer to his Florida home, then it was that he only would accept a trade to Cincinnati. Well, the lottery is over, and I know the winner. Me. That’s right, I am the new owner of the Kid. I know what your’re thinking, you’re thinking I am crazy. That maybe I have been sniffing a little to many paint fumes. But you’re wrong, and I can prove it. I have a receipt. Today on my way home from work, I decided to celebrate my one day a year off from thinking about baseball by getting myself a gift. I went over to Best Buy and picked up Ken Griffey Jr.’s Slugfest for the Color GameBoy. I could hardly wait to get home and pop it in the machine. I eagerly unwrapped it and started this bad boy up. Wow, me the owner of the player everyone is calling the best that ever played the game. I didn’t want to be cheated out of even one second so I even put new batteries in the GameBoy before I started. Junior swaggered up to the plate, I now controlled his every move. The pitch came and I patiently watched it go by for a called strike. The second pitch was delivered and Griffey swung fouling the ball off down the third base line. The third pitch was belt-high right down the middle and Junior took a mighty cut. Strike three! This game sucks. I turned it off and sat in the living room with my hat down over my eyes.