Diary of a Diehard

It’s funny how baseball has a way of reaching through all that is going on in the world and suddenly become the center of our universe. The game captivated the country in 1961 when Yankee teammates Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris chased the most cherished record in all of baseball held by the man who is synonymous with the game. It broke our hearts in 1995 when a work stoppage based upon greed took away a World Series and most probably sealed the fate of the Montreal Expos having to move. It brought us back from the brink of dispair in 1998 with the home run frenzy by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa (regardless of whether that chase included performance-enhancing substances). It made a Major League city out of Phoenix Arizona with a World Series Championship won with a pair of aces. That is what is so amazing about baseball, you never quite know when you might be witnessing history when you pass through the turnstiles. Take the last couple of days for example; Diamondbacks players have been a part of some historic events that might never happen again.

Continue reading ‘It’s History’ »

The promotional schedule for the Arizona Diamondbacks is the largest in the 10 year team history. It seems like each and every home stand has a great giveaway to those in attendance. My family is a huge fan of the giveaway and my kids actually hold a draft to see who will attend what game to get what giveaway. The giveaway schedule has a method to its madness. For example Saturdays are bobble head day. All six of the bobble head promotions for the 2007 season occur on Saturdays. This Saturday for example is Mark Grace bobble head day which is somewhat appropriate since the Diamondbacks are playing the Chicago Cubs which are the two teams that Grace played for during his career. Sunday games typically have giveaways oriented towards the kids where many of the promotional items are only available to children 12 and younger. Most of those giveaway items I am happy to leave for the children but every once in a while that doesn’t necessarily work out. Take this Sunday for example.

Continue reading ‘Where Can You Rent a Kid?’ »

As I have mentioned before, the most enjoyable part about this blog is the interesting and fun baseball people that you meet. Some of these are passionate fans who love their teams and what to share their favorite baseball stories. Others may not necessarily agree with my take on a particular subject and want to let me know. One crazy lady reads my site and uses it to beat me around the head and shoulders because I waste time on the Internet instead of working on the honey do list that she prepared before the season started. Throughout these interactions I still come out amazed that there are really people out there who not only have found my blog but actually read entries that I’ve written. I’m just a guy from section 132 so I have no delusions other than that. I look at this blog more as therapy than anything else. It gives me an opportunity to put down some of my thoughts and ideas so the voices in my head will quit yelling at me. I never really thought that it could lead to anything other than that but then I’ve been wrong before (I think Trina collects statistics on how often I am wrong and according to her calculations I have the highest recorded batting average in history for being wrong).

Continue reading ‘Being an Insider’ »

Over the course of the first 124 games of the 2007 regular season there has been one constant in the universe. Eric Byrnes could be found somewhere in the Arizona Diamondbacks line-up. Byrnes is the only player who has played in every game this season starting all but one (he came in as a defensive replacement in the one game where he did not start). Byrnes, who is sometimes lovingly referred to as “pigpen” has been by far the most consistent of all the Diamondbacks players. During the first half of the season there were long stretches where he carried this team on his shoulders with his acrobatic catches and timely hits. Many believed he was the one legitimate all-star on the Arizona roster which made it all the more difficult to comprehend how he could be left off the roster of the mid-summer classic. Byrnes took the snub in stride and instead used the all-star break as an opportunity to hone his skills as a reporter for Fox Sports. He took those three days off because he had to but still you could tell he would rather be playing. Bob Melvin found out when he attempted to give Byrnes today off that it is not something that the outfielder is accustomed to and it doesn’t sit well with him at all.

Continue reading ‘A Day Without Byrnes’ »

A day after Brandon Webb put on another pitching clinic where he shut out the potent Atlanta Braves line-up and ran his streak to 42 innings of not allowing a run everyone wondered how rookie right-handed pitcher Micah Owings could possibly compare. While Owings has had glimpses of promise, he found himself in an impossible situation of following a history making performance by the team ace. This was an unenviable position to be in and no one expected much and the only hope was that Micah would somehow keep the Diamondbacks close and allow the hitters an opportunity to possibly steal game 2 and the series. The problem with that theory was that someone forgot to tell Micah.

Continue reading ‘Micah the Amazing’ »

When Arizona Diamondbacks ace Brandon Webb takes the mound tonight against the Atlanta Braves he will be carrying with him a streak of not allowing a run in 33-innings. This streak is now a career and franchise best and indeed quite an accomplishment. But it still pales when put into the perspective of the overall Major League record. That record stands at 59 consecutive innings and is held by Los Angeles Dodgers great Orel Hershiser who set the mark during an amazing 1988 season where he won 23 games while pitching 267 innings including 15 complete games. These are some unbelievable numbers and with Webb in the midst of chasing “the bulldog” and his record I thought it would be fun to extrapolate how these two compare.

Continue reading ‘They Call Him the Streak’ »

The landscape of the annual amateur baseball draft has changed this season as compared to years past. The new collective bargaining agreement that baseball enacted had several updated provisions contained within it that modified the structure behind the draft. Draft choices are still awarded based upon reverse standings from the previous year but little else remained the same. Previously teams had nearly an entire year to negotiate with their draft choices. If the player and the team were unable to reach an agreement the player would re-enter the draft and the team received little value in return. This gave a lot of incentive to the player’s representative to stall the signing since most teams would not want to come up with nothing to show for their draft choice especially if that choice was high in the draft order. Agents basically held teams hostage demanding substantial signing bonuses or major league contracts for players who had never played professionally. The escalating costs of signing draft choices along with the prolonged nature of the signing period were points that Commissioner Bud Selig wanted to mitigate. As a result these became negotiating points with the player’s union and changes were implemented. The 2007 draft became the first where these rules were in effect.

Continue reading ‘Do You Feel a Draft?’ »

One of the great things about writing a blog and running a Diamondbacks fan site is that you get to sometimes meet some very interesting people. It is always cool to find others who are as passionate about the Diamondbacks or baseball as I am. Some of these people will leave comments and let me know their thoughts about the team, its players, or the stadium. Some will send me an email and let me know about other cool sites that I might be interested. Some will try to sell me generic versions of Viagra or offer me investment opportunities for helping them get money from corrupt government officials in Africa. One thing is for sure, it is always an adventure when you open up your email client.

Continue reading ‘What Are the Odds?’ »

Over the course of 162 games there are bound to be a few that you would just as soon forget as a player or a fan. I think tonight’s game against the Florida Marlins in Miami would classify as one we would all just wish never really happened. It started off with a 34 minute rain delay which anyone who owns a Tivo knows is really bad. Not the rain so much but the time delay. Tivo uses the timeframe set by the network to determine when to begin and end recording. Introducing a 34 minute delay meant that the game would probably not be over when Tivo stopped recording. In the case of tonight’s game that might not have been a bad thing. This may have been Tivo’s way of sparing us the pain and misery of a 14-5 clubbing by the fish. The problem is that the most interesting part of this game was the final inning with infielder extraordinaire Augie Ojeda became the third position player in Arizona Diamondbacks history to pitch in a regular season game (can you name the other two?)

Continue reading ‘Who Took the Wheels Off Our Bus?’ »