Diary of a Diehard

I am still moping around lamenting the fact that I missed a Spring Training game last week. Trina of course cannot understand why this is such a big deal. After all in another week or so I’ll be settling in for 83 games at Chase Field so what does it matter whether I get in one more game or not. I likewise cannot understand the situation. How in the world could she even ask that question? Missing any baseball game is equivalent to skipping a breath. You never have that opportunity to ever get that breath back, it is just lost. You miss enough breaths and you pass out or worse die. “Do you really want me to die?” I asked incredulously. Trina of course countered with, “I think you are being just a little over dramatic.” She’ll think over dramatic when one day I just keel over and die at about 1:06 PM after missing yet another Spring Training game. Then she’ll be sorry. I have half a mind to just do that; after baseball season of course. I don’t want to miss a game.

Continue reading ‘When Good Friday Becomes Great Friday’ »

For the past 24 hours sports fans around the country have been frantically searching the Internet for any tidbit of information that would give them an edge in selecting their NCAA basketball picks. Yes ladies and gentlemen we have now officially entered what is lovingly referred to as March Madness. It is that one time of year when suddenly everyone is a college basketball expert. And what better way to show this new found expertise than to successfully predict who will come out victorious and be crowned as college basketball’s champion. For the past week my email inbox has been flooded with invitations to join this site or that site and pick the winners. The prizes are plentiful and impressive. One site is offering $1 million to anyone who can successfully predict every winner in the tournament. Another site offers an opportunity for the winner to drive away in a brand new car. The most fascinating offer came from a farmer who had his own tournament selection contest and offered his pig to the winner. I know there is nothing that says “I know basketball” quite like winning a pig. After reading that offer I began to imagine what life would be like should I win. Placing an official NCAA collar around my pig’s neck I would proudly walk down the street where everyone would stop and point. I could even hear their whispers, “hey look at that! I bet that is that basketball genius guy who won the pig! That is some pig!” At that point all that I would really be lacking is a talking spider who could spell things using spider webs and I would have all the raw materials necessary for a great children’s book and a really pathetic movie. Really there is only one thing stopping this fantasy from becoming a reality.

Continue reading ‘What a Bracket’ »

After years of therapy I still have not quite gotten over the fact that many of my teenage formidable years were spent in the 1970′s when Disco roamed the earth. Music was not necessarily a big thing in my life. Much of that is probably due to the fact that I lived in Idaho which is not necessarily the music capital of the world. The fact of the matter was that we lived in the second largest city in the state of Idaho and it was serviced by 3 FMradio stations; all of them classic country music meaning rarely did you hear a country song dating past the 1960′s. It was unbearable. For the first few times driving after I got my driver’s license I would take my car to the mechanic for repair because the radio was making horrific sounds. They could not find anything wrong with the radio and finally the mechanic solved the problem. “Son your radio is not broken. That noise you are hearing is country music.” Well you could have fooled me, when that “music” played the radio sounded busted. I remember when I was a sophomore in high school and one of the three radio stations decided to switch formats and play Top-40. There was dancing in the streets and scenes reminiscent of V-J Day that ended the second World War. There was of course a caveat. The station only played Top-40 during daylight hours. As soon as the sun went down they went back to country music. It was like a bad vampire movie. Kids rushed to their cars and stereos as the last rays of light faded for the day to turn them off before the shrieking sounds of cow-tipping, booze-drinking, woman-cheating, dog-killing cowboy tunes filled the airways. You would have thought that all would be good now that we finally had a Top-40 radio station even if it was just part time but that wasn’t the case.

Continue reading ‘You, You Light Up My Life’ »

There are certain subjects that are just too painful for a Diamondbacks fan to write about. There is the 2004 season when the Diamondbacks were bitten by the curse of Richie Sexson and the subsequent 111-losses that year. There is the four game sweep by the “great Troy Tulowitzki” and the hated Colorado Rockies in last year’s 2007 National League Championship Series. And then there is the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Los Angeles thing takes a little bit of explaining and even I don’t fully understand it completely. It’s not so much a Diamondbacks versus Dodgers thing as it is a Phoenix versus Los Angeles thing.

Continue reading ‘I Can’t Believe I Am Writing About the Dodgers’ »

I’m not Irish. I’ve never been Irish and it’s a pretty safe bet that I will never be Irish. And considering I grew up in Idaho, I am probably not the most knowledgeable guy on the planet when it comes to St. Patrick’s Day. About all I really know of the holiday is that if you don’t wear green you get pinched a lot as a kid. After getting married Trina and I began a family of our own. Having kids is a great responsibility and one that I take very seriously. Well as seriously as I take anything with according to Trina’s assessment is that I don’t take anything seriously. There are some things that I do hold in high regards. The Diamondbacks for example, I take them very seriously. Ok, that is about the only thing that I can think of that I do take seriously but hey that is something isn’t it?

Continue reading ‘Irish Spring’ »

It’s funny, Spring Training baseball games have been going for a little more than two weeks and Opening Day is still over two weeks away and yet a day does not go by that I don’t get asked the question, “What is wrong with the Diamondbacks?” Oh what a difference a year makes. Last season everyone was wondering how many games below .500 the Diamondbacks would be at season’s end and whether the team would miss former fan-favorite Luis Gonzalez. The team was in the midst of a full-blown youth movement and expectations were relatively low. But after the Diamondbacks shocked the baseball world by accumulating the best record in the National League and making it as far as the NLCS; all eyes are on the Diamondbacks every move. That being said, the concern is just a touch premature.

Continue reading ‘Which Button Do You Press For Panic?’ »

“Jeff, it’s midnight.” I barely heard Trina’s voice. I was too busy standing at the front window peering through the blinds at the quiet street and the darkness of the neighbor’s house across the street. “What are you doing?” she asked. “The postcard said that my Diamondbacks Season Tickets would be delivered on March 15″ I replied still staring out the window. “I don’t think that they meant that your tickets would be delivered the moment the calendar flipped to March 15″ she said. “The postcard wasn’t real specific so I don’t want to take any chances” I replied. “Are you going to spend the whole night in front of that window?” She asked. “If that’s what it takes, yes.” I said in the most determined voice I possessed. With that Trina turned and headed upstairs to bed. She said something about obsession and mental health but I was too busy watching the window for movement to understand her completely. I have no idea how she could sleep at a time like this. Doesn’t she understand what this day means?

Continue reading ‘Season Ticket Holder’ »

You would think after yesterday’s mail disaster that I would have been cured from going down to the mailbox and retrieving the mail. No one have ever accused me of thinking (at least not in the mainstream kind of way) so today I was the first to volunteer to go down and get the mail. After all, maybe my invitation to become a Season Ticket holder would be in today’s mail. I’m still not quite sure I understand why I thought it was so important to get an invitation to be a Season Ticket holder. This fact of course dawned on me about halfway down to the mailbox. It was one of those smack your forehead and proclaim that you should have had a V-8 moments. By the time I got down to the box I was calmed down and my expectations were lowered as to what I would find in the box.

Continue reading ‘The Waiting is the Hardest Part’ »

It’s funny how quickly your week can go from great to crappy. Not funny in the sense of a clown getting a cream pie in the face. More like funny in the sense of seeing the guy in Wal-Mart dressed in a Phoenix Suns uniform but wearing a fur coat under his tank top then as you get closer you realize it’s not a fur coat it is his back. Yeah that is kind of how this week is turning out for me. It started out with the idea of having a few days off from work and taking in a different Spring Training baseball game every day of the week basking in the warm Arizona sun and assessing a team’s chances for the 2008 season. That dream was quickly destroyed with a pipe wrench. Then it really went downhill when I realized that I couldn’t read a calendar. When the first half of your week goes this poorly there is not a whole lot more you can do except crawl back into bed and pull the covers up over your head and pray for the bad dreams to end.

Continue reading ‘Why Did She Get One?’ »