Diary of a Diehard

After last night’s Carlos Quentin show where he hit 2 home runs and drove in 5 of the 6 Diamondbacks runs I was feeling pretty good about life. The home stand was started, we had a small but exciting 3 game winning streak going and we were playing the Colorado Rockies. There was not a whole lot that could go wrong, right? Whenever I ask myself that question it usually precedes some kind of disaster. I fully expected that as soon as those words came out of my mouth the roof to Chase Field would come crumbling down causing the game to be cancelled and as if that were not bad enough, not one single piece of the roof would hit Rally Sally so I would be faced with the realization that she might be invincible. But I was confident that we could overcome the forces of nature and somehow find a way to win another game from the boys in purple and black.

Continue reading ‘Lamb or Lyon?’ »

Usually I hate Mondays. It means I am back at work and dealing with the daily grind of my job. The kids are whining that they have to start another week of school and how unfair all of their teachers are to require them to study and take tests. This week though was slightly different. It is the last week of school for the kids which mean four days of never ending activities and yearbook parties. That much youth and adrenaline is typically frowned upon in our house but Trina stood no chance since I seemed to be leading the charge of excitement. I didn’t really care whether the kids were getting out of school or not in fact my life is slightly more painful when they are out of school than when they are in school but that was not why I was so excited.

Continue reading ‘Back in the Saddle Again’ »

The Diamondbacks have had their share of troubles this season offensively. This has shown itself through the fact that we’ve not even once gotten close to a Taco Bell Chalupa which is given when the team scores eight or more runs at any home game. The fans are starting to get a little frustrated with the lack of offense or maybe it is the lack of free food, I am not sure which. It’s not that the Diamondbacks are not scoring any runs; they are just scoring a few runs. It has been nearly a month since the Diamondbacks were able to put together more than a couple of runs in an inning. So when Micah Owings struggled in last night’s game and posted the Pittsburgh Pirates to a 7-1 lead it looked bleak for the hometown boys. Those fans with weak stomachs probably saw fit to turn off the television and radio rather than look at the carnage. I wanted to start to cry (that may have been a result of me kicking the television cabinet while barefoot).

Continue reading ‘A Game for the Ages’ »

On May 10 infielder was taken into custody on suspicion of domestic violence. Callaspo was taken in for questioning and missed the team flight to Houston to begin this road trip. The Diamondbacks took swift action and placed Callaspo on the restricted list until this matter was straightened out. The restricted list is a provision where a player is not available to play and is not paid while he remains on the list. A team can keep a player on the restricted list for 10 days then they need to make a decision as to his status. All eyes would be on the Arizona Diamondbacks to see how they handled this situation. With a new ownership group in place everyone was curious whether character counted as much now as it did during the Colangelo era. Players involved with off-field problems had a very short leash when Jerry was at the helm. It did not matter how big a star or what kind of draw they were to the box office. When Diamondbacks reliever Bobby Chouinard was arrested and charged with domestic violence he was given his walking papers soon after charges were formally made against him. When Phoenix Suns guard Jason Kidd was accused of domestic violence he soon found himself leaving Phoenix and heading to New Jersey. There appeared to be a zero-tolerance policy for this type of offense.

Continue reading ‘Callaspo Revisited’ »

Sometimes it is hard to be a baseball fan in Phoenix Arizona and sometimes it is even harder to be a Diamondbacks fan. There are many factors that contribute to this statement many of which probably would be a good thesis for an advanced sociology or psychology degree. I don’t have a degree in either of those so having a goal to get an ADVANCED degree in one of them is probably not a realistic educational goal. So instead of basing my hypothesis with a lot of facts and research, I’ll do what probably the majority of society does. I’ll generalize and express opinion and represent it as fact. Hey I’ve read Wikipedia so I know how this works. Once I hit the publish button and this text appears on the Internet, it is irrevocable and fact. Ah the power of the Internet, you just gotta love it. So before I stray too far from my initial sentence let me get back on track. It is hard to be a baseball fan in Phoenix. There are days that it is even harder to be a Diamondbacks fan (like when Sedona Red enters the picture).

Continue reading ‘Bailing on the Bandwagon’ »

When the Diamondbacks are home, I am away and when the Diamondbacks are away, I am at home. This phrase is how my family best describes our situation during baseball season. As an avid baseball fan especially towards the Diamondbacks, that is how it should be. Trina does not necessarily agree with that last statement and it has resulted in me finding myself sleeping on the couch more times than I can remember. But from March through hopefully October that is precisely how it is at our house. When the Diamondbacks schedule is released, Trina will dutifully enter it into her daily planner so that she knows when I am available and when I am not. This has many implications.

Continue reading ‘The Longest Home Trip of My Life’ »

When the Arizona Diamondbacks were awarded as a franchise on March 9, 1995 they were not alone. They were one of two franchises the other one being the Tampa Bay Devil Rays. Since that moment these two organizations have been connected and probably will remain so for the their entire existence. The two teams took very different approaches to building their teams. The Devil Rays had an existing stadium, Tropicana Field, and chose to build the team using their farm system. The Diamondbacks on the other hand chose to build a team partly with young players but the majority of the team would be made up of veteran players with a 5 year plan to become a contender. This strategy paid off as the Diamondbacks reached the play-offs in just their second year and won a world championship in just their fourth season. The Devil Rays on the other hand have never had a winning record since joining the American League East ten years ago. Going on a decade of losing has been a painful process and has taken its toll on the Rays fans. As a result Tampa Bay is now in a position where they are trying to build a larger fan base.

Continue reading ‘A Mickey Mouse Idea’ »

Ever since the Diamondbacks game last August 11 I have been waiting for my car tags to expire so that I could order a new Arizona Diamondbacks license plate. The plates finally became available last month. It was a week too late for Trina’s car to be included but my car came due today. I had been eagerly awaiting the renewal notice so that I had the information necessary to order the plates. Every day I would go to the mail box hoping to find a letter from the Arizona Department of Transportation. What a strange situation. Never in a million years would I have ever imagined that I would actually look forward to my car license to expire. Still that is the situation I now found myself in. Every day I would come back from the mail box depressed to find that the renewal notice had not arrived. I was starting to get a little nervous since I knew that my tags expired today and I had not heard anything. As much as I dreaded it, it looked as though I would have to make a phone call to the Department of Motor Vehicles or worse have to go visit a DMV office.

Continue reading ‘Department of Masochist Vehicles’ »

Most people remember their college days fondly. How it was the first time they really had lived away from home and made their own decisions. Of course most of those decisions revolved around alcohol, girls, alcohol, and girls. Somewhere in the middle of that you drug yourself out of bed and into class at least enough times so that you didn’t get thrown out of school and had to go home where you just knew that you father was waiting for you to fail at college so he could put you to work as a ditch digger or some other manual laborer job. The other thing most college students have in common is the fact that they are typically dirt poor. (Is there a corollary dirt rich and exactly how much do you have to make to be classified as dirt rich?) Well the Arizona Diamondbacks feel the pain of these students and have a solution. The team has recently announced the D-backs Student Season Pass that will offer students a chance to attend Diamondbacks home games.

Continue reading ‘Student Summer Pass’ »