Diary of a Diehard » 2001 Off Season

Ballyard Talk

Jeff Summers — Thu, 08 Feb 2001 08:15:53 +0000

Each year before Spring Training begins, the Arizona Diamondbacks hold a Ballyard Chat with several of the players and coaches. This year, it was held today at Linkrugel’s Ballyard Brewery at Bank One Ballpark. There was Randy Johnson along with Bob Brenly and Joe Garagiola Junior. They talked for nearly an hour about the state of the game, what they were looking forward to, what holes they felt were still in the roster and how they thought they would close the gap on the other teams in the National League Western Division. Each season, I try to attend the Ballyard Talk. It is not so much to see or hear the speakers as it is to just be at the ballpark. February is the hardest on me. It is at this point that spring training is right around the corner and yet opening day seems so far away. Granted, it would have been nicer if they would hold the Ballyard talk down on the field so that I could have checked out the status of the turf but I guess I can’t have everything.

It is kind of strange to see the players not in uniform. You get so used to seeing them in short sleeve pinstripes and a baseball cap that it is difficult to envision them wearing street clothes. In most cases, if you didn’t look closely, you would not recognize the person sitting next to you at the movies was a baseball player, unless that player was Randy Johnson. Given my luck, I would be sitting right behind him during Titanic and for three straight hours, all I would hear would be “iceberg dead ahead!” while looking directly into a dry scalp.

Glued and Tattooed

Jeff Summers — Wed, 07 Feb 2001 08:51:22 +0000

For the most part, Trina is a stay at home mother taking care of the children. It has worked out quite nicely as the kids have gotten to know their mother quite well and formed a special bond. Don’t get me wrong, I am not opposed to women in the work place, I merely feel that if possible, a mother is needed at home to help with the fostering of young minds and preparing them for what lies ahead in their lives. There are times, like every Wednesday when Trina has things planned outside the home and I am left to care for the kids. I don’t mind, it gives me a chance to be with them more closely and I relish that time. But on certain occasions, I too get busy and the kids are given more latitude and freedom than they are normally accustomed to. For the older kids, that is perfectly fine, but with Dakota, that can be dangerous. Tonight happened to be one of the dangerous moments. I was busy working downstairs and time seemed to slip away from me. Before long, I began to notice something strange in the house, silence. That is a rarity around our house and can mean only one thing, Dakota is up to something. I began to call his name to see what he was up to. When he would not answer, I knew he was up to no good. After a thorough search of the house, I found him in the closet. There he sat with a series of colored markers making tattoos on his arms and legs. Obviously he knew he was had and I began the lecture of why markers belonged on paper and not on skin. About that time, Trina returned home to see her multi-colored son. She glared at me and immediately took Dakota to the bathroom for clean-up. “You know those are permanent markers” she said. I knew better, Dakota was in for the scrubbing of his life. By the time his bath was over, he was pink all over as the upper layer of skin was scrubbed off along with the tattoo.

Arbitration, That Goofy Game for Dopey Lawyers

Jeff Summers — Tue, 06 Feb 2001 08:52:35 +0000

Well, after the long dark winter off-season, it is time for the long dark pre-spring training ritual of arbitration hearings. As nearly everyone knows, I am not much of an arbitration fan. It seems counter-productive for a player to sit down with an owner and air their grievances towards each other in hopes of gouging the other party with regards to salary. The team representative will come into the meeting wanting everyone to know how poorly the player has done and try to justify why they should have to pay the player anything near fair market value. The player on the other hand will come into the meeting trying to tout every statistic that has been accumulated about their performance to show how valuable they are and why they should be paid double what a player deserves. This typically ends up causing the relationship between a player and the team to become strained. The first case of the season belonged to non other former Arizona Diamondback Travis Lee. Travis again struggled last season spending part of the time in Tucson trying to work through yet another batting slump before being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. Once there, he continued to struggle ending the year with a .235 batting average which is well below the league average for a first baseman. To further alienate management, Travis also declined to play winter ball saying he would rather spend time with his friends and family than further develop his baseball skills. Now, here he is, claiming he should be making $1.6 million per season, a $1.1 million raise from his $500,000 salary of last year. The Phillies, not known for their financial prowess anyway, offered Travis $800,000. For the life of me, I cannot imagine why you would reward a player an additional $300,000 for playing well below their potential. But this is the same team who felt that Jose Mesa and Ricky Bottalico were the best available relief pitchers and is shelling out somewhere around $6 this season for them. As luck would have it, the arbitration panel seems to have some shred of decency and turned down Lee’s request. He will have to scrimp and get by on $800,000 this season, poor kid.

Who’s In the Dog House

Jeff Summers — Mon, 05 Feb 2001 08:53:57 +0000

It is funny how a song will strike a nerve in society and suddenly become almost a national anthem. Each year, literally thousands of new songs are introduced to the general public but only a few ever make it to the charts and even fewer of them become number one hits. But it is an even rarer phenomenon is when a song crosses over the boundaries from music to sports. For example, when Queen brought out We Will Rock You, no one could have predicted that this would become a sports anthem. Nor could they have predicted that they would follow this up with the smash stadium hit, We Are The Champions. I think it would be safe to say that Queen is the reigning king (queen?) of sports anthems but may soon see their dominance usurped by the Baha Men. After their monster hit last summer of Who Let the Dogs Out, stadiums around the country began using this song. First it was just when the home team won a game, then it branched out to when a major play occurred soon, the song was being played at what seemed to be every time-out. By the season’s end, I was beginning to wonder myself who had let these dogs out? Rather than being excited about this though, I was looking for the idiot who released the hounds and required us to listen to this song endlessly. It has become obvious that we need to begin enforcing a leash law and try to corral these pups and keep them under lock and key. I have not been this annoyed at a song since they began to play the Macarana. There are nights that I still wake up in a cold sweat after dreaming of myself standing on top of a dugout somewhere doing that infernal dance. I shudder just thinking about it. Getting back to this dog song though, it has reached an all-time low in our household. Dakota has decided this is his new favorite song and he goes around the house singing it constantly. Not only that, but he now has Dog Dot Com singing a duet. Whenever he yells, “Who let the dogs out!”, Dottie begins to bark. It is enough to drive a man to drink. My only hope is that we find a new song before opening day. I have about had enough of these wild dogs roaming the streets.

Hurling Through the Dakotas

Jeff Summers — Sun, 04 Feb 2001 08:54:37 +0000

“MOM!” Dakota screamed from the doorway of his bedroom. With that, Trina and I came straight out of the bed. It didn’t matter that it was 2:15 in the morning or that I had only been in bed for an hour. I was wide awake with Dakota’s yell. As we hit the floor as a result of his scream we were able to see his outline as he threw up all over the floor. There is something strange about a small child when they are sick. He obviously had no idea what was going on other than the fact that he was experiencing something completely foreign and rather frightening. Now I learned early on in our marriage that when the kids are sick and throwing up that the best thing for me to do is to pretend I am asleep and let Trina deal with it. Now before I start getting e-mail about how mean and uncaring I am and that I should share in this responsibility, let me explain why my behavior is best for all concerned. If I catch a glimpse of one of the kids throwing up or if I have to clean it up afterwards, I will quickly begin to be sick myself. Once that happens, I will be little or no use to Trina and will in fact be even more of a burden since she will now have to clean up after me as well. So while I recognize that I should help, I feel it is best for the family unit as a whole if I just roll over and stick my head under the pillow. Before long, Trina has Dakota laying on the floor of the bathroom so that she can at least contain the mess in a small tile floored room. Once things are cleaned up and order is restored, she crawls back into bed and just to make sure I am still there, she sticks her ice cold feet in the small of my back and shoves me to the floor. As I climb back into bed, she merely asks sweetly, “Are you just coming to bed?” I guess I deserve that. I will trade getting pushed out of bed for holding a kid’s head above the toilet any day of the week.

XFL and Other White Trash

Jeff Summers — Sat, 03 Feb 2001 08:55:41 +0000

Well, tonight was opening night for the new XFL season. For those of you unaware, the XFL is a partnership between NBC and the WWF. I was not quite sure what to expect but since I am playing in an XFL Fantasy League, I felt it was my duty as an owner to at least support my players and watch a game. Granted, I am not much of a football fan and that is a good thing since what I was watching did not seem to resemble anything like football. Instead, I was greeted by the color commentary of Jesse “The Body” Ventura who happens to also be the governor or Minnesota. Now as near as I can tell, running Minnesota must be just a part time job if you can take off each week to hang out at a football game. I have to admit, the various camera angles was interesting and kept me watching for at least a couple of minutes. I grabbed my roster to check and see which of these players were on my team. As a tackle was made or a running back went for a big gain, I would look at the names on the back of their jerseys and compare it against my list. About the third play though, I couldn’t find any of these guys. Then I realized that the players were not required to put their own names on the back of their shirts. This became evident when a defensive player crawled out from under the pile and the back of his jersey had the words “She Hates” written on it. I am not sure what that means but I for one would get out of the way if I saw “She Hates” coming towards me. He was able to put a bone shattering hit on “The Truth” which “The Body” replayed over and over so that we got the full effect of the collision. Between these psychotic players and the scantly clad cheerleaders who go into the stands during the game to dance with the fans I wondered whether I was watching football or Cinemax After Dark. Yeah, I can see where this sport is going to rank right up there with Monday Night Nitro and NASCAR. I am beginning to think I do not fit into the demographic that this league is catering to. Perhaps they should move these games to The Nashville Channel right after the Dukes of Hazzard re-runs.

It’s Groundhog Day!

Jeff Summers — Fri, 02 Feb 2001 08:56:22 +0000

There are times when the simple things in life mean the most to us. Take today for example. Instead of rushing around in the rat race worrying about stock prices and how the economy is doing, I am content watching the proceedings in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania. Only in America would thousands of people travel to a quaint little town in Northeastern Pennsylvania in the dead of winter to see if a large furry rodent can predict the weather. I have always had a soft spot for this holiday and have for years attempted to make it more mainstream. I think Groundhog Day is long overdue it’s place in the sun. We celebrate holidays with fat guys dressed in red velvet and large rabbits who believe dairy products should be colorful and well hidden. Isn’t there a place somewhere in between these two for a weather-predicting rodent? Of course the importance of this holiday is directly dependant upon the latitude at which you live. For example, if I were living at the forty-fifth parallel, I would be much more interested in Groundhog Day since it would mean the difference of freezing to death in the snow and basking in the sunshine. Living in Phoenix at thirty-three degrees north, the difference between winter and spring is probably the difference between 65 degrees and 75 degrees. So whether the groundhog sees his shadow or not really doesn’t matter here.

The other aspect of this tradition that bothers me is the whole premise of what happens when the groundhog sees his shadow. It would seem logical that if the sky was clear, the sun would be out and that would signify spring is on its way. If you could not see your shadow, that would mean that it is cloudy and probably stormy which I would think would mean that winter is not quite over since we are in store for more snow and rain. That just seems logical. That is why I have to wonder what in the heck is wrong with this rodent? According to the groundhog, if he sees his shadow, then winter will last another 6 weeks. If he does not see his shadow, spring will come early. What is up with that? I guess this is what separates man from the others in the animal kingdom. Well, that and we have opposable thumbs.

And the Countdown Begins…

Jeff Summers — Thu, 01 Feb 2001 08:57:19 +0000

Finally, the longest month of the year is over. As I have said before, I am not much of a January fan. Oh sure, it starts out well enough. You can’t complain when you get the first day of the month off as a holiday but the rest of the month just seems to drag on as we have to wade through one boring winter day after another. Sure, it is broken up by the announcement of the Hall of Fame inductees but even that excitement cannot be expected to last more than a few days. But now, that long dreary month is finally over and the official countdown to the 2001 baseball season can finally begin. I think it is only appropriate this year that pitchers and catchers report the day after Valentines day. What better way to continue the feelings of joy and love than to see the players report to camp and the sound of balls hitting gloves are once again heard from the practice fields. I can almost feel the love of the game. I am sure that these first two weeks of February will be hard to take but I at least have the thoughts of the Caribbean World Series to keep me going through the first week. So as the new month dawns, I got out my trusty countdown supplies and went to work. First I tore off the month of January from the calendar, I won’t be needing that any more. Next, I pulled out my red magic marker and circled February 15 just so I don’t lose sight of the goal. I then glued on four gold stars on the date to remind me that this will be the fourth spring training for the Diamondbacks. Finally, I took out my black magic marker and placed a big “X” on February 1 to denote that this day is over. Finally, on the refrigerator I placed a big “14″ to denote the number of days remaining until pitchers and catchers arrive in Tucson. Now all I have to do is wait. And look at my watch. And wait. And look at my watch. Jeez, how much longer is this going to take?

They’re Mine, They’re All Mine!

Jeff Summers — Wed, 31 Jan 2001 08:58:25 +0000

This day has been a long time in coming. For me, I was eagerly awaiting its arrival. For Trina, it was a day to dread. This is a red letter day and a highlight to the year so far. I am of course talking about the day that Season Ticket final payments are due. Sure, it means I have to shell out my hard earned cash to the Arizona Diamondbacks to pay for the upcoming season. But that is just looking at the pessimistic side of things. I like to think of myself as an optimist so today marks the day that Section 133 Row 12 Seats 14-15 are completely mine. Before, they were only half mine since I had only paid half of the cost of my tickets. Now though, they are all mine. I can hardly wait for that first Spring Training game at Bank One Ballpark on March 30. It is at that time that I will be able to finally “move in”. It is just like getting a new house, I have so many plans on how I want to decorate and landscape my new place. I was thinking of putting in grass and maybe even a swimming pool. And of course I want something where I can look up at the stars during the cooler spring and fall temperatures but I also want something that can protect me from the stifling heat of an Arizona summer. What would be great is if my new place had a retractable roof, that would be cool!

Baseball, It Be Jammin’

Jeff Summers — Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:01:53 +0000

“Honey, remember when you said you really wanted to go on vacation and how romantic it would be if we traveled to some exotic foreign country? I was thinking, we should really do that, like maybe this week. How would you feel about going to CuliacÃ¡n, Mexico? I hear it is really beautiful this time of year.”

I thought for sure the conversation would go well after such a wonderful opening. Instead, I was met with a look of skepticism. “Why, what is going on in CuliacÃ¡n, Mexico this week?” How could she mistrust me after I have offered to take her away from the day-to-day trials and tribulations that frequent our lives? “Well, I was thinking we could go and hang out, maybe check out some Mayan ruins, do some sight-seeing and see some of the local sights.” I said innocently. “What KIND of local sights?” she again questioned. “Um, well, there was one thing that I wouldn’t mind seeing while we are there, the Caribbean World Series.” I added quietly. “I KNEW IT! This is nothing more than a ploy for you to go and see more baseball!” she exclaimed. “I think that is unfair, after all YOU were the one who suggested that we should go on a romantic vacation. And if you think about it, is there anything more romantic than going to a World Series game with the person you love?” I asked sweetly. I thought that last comment would for sure win her over. “Well, I am not going on vacation so that you can see ANOTHER baseball game!” she announced. It was at this point that it probably would have been best if I would have just kept my mouth shut but it seems my brain is not fast enough to catch my mouth before it says something stupid and before I could stop myself, I could hear myself saying, “Well, would you mind if I went without you?” That was about the last thing I can remember. I am still not sure how I ended up on the floor or why the left side of my face is red and sore.