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Once More To The Diamond
The most illusory, and ultimately counterproductive, aspect of stadium naming rights is its imposition of an increasingly transient corporate stamp upon baseball, our most traditional and longstanding pastime. Sprouting dot coms and feverishly merging banks tout showy naming contracts only to abandon them – and by extension – the stadium, team and fans, soon thereafter.
Smoothing one’s decals on a park somebody 
else built, and pretending it’s yours, is a particularly modern illusion; hinting of something new that is not new, of something better that is not better. The deception of ownership or auspices over that which you clearly do not own.
Taxpayers financed the Phoenix hangar on Jefferson and Seventh, and we can call it anything we like, regardless of which executive vice president of blah,blah, blah sheepishly snips his ceremonial ribbon to a cascade of boos this year or next. On the heels of the Chase/JP Morgan merger, for example, one pundit, apparently familiar with Bob Melvin’s teams, deliciously came up with "The Morg" – and we mocked up our own tongue in cheek naming ceremony a while back – but it’s time more serious thought was applied to this matter.
Despite my idealistic preference for an eternal, stand alone name like Fenway, Yankee or Dodger Stadium, market realism dictates a compromise of nomenclature: a hybrid moniker of an inevitably revolving, corporate "first" name, followed by an immutable stadium ‘surname’.
What venue titles might distinguish our place from the rest, while evoking baseball’s timeless qualities? Incorporating "Diamond" into the field name is unique – no other MLB team currently does – and it ties into the franchise name rather obviously.
"Diamondbacks Diamond" doesnt exactly roll off the tongue. What about "Copper Diamond" or "The Diamond at Copper Square"? Or "Downtown Diamond", " Desert Diamond" or "Diamond in the Desert" ? The corporate appendage elongates it to "Chase Downtown Diamond", which could segue into "Nextel Downtown Diamond" or, horror of horrors, "Blue Diamond Almonds Desert Diamond". Whatever the core stadium name though, stays.
In perpetuity.
The advantage is that, in an era of accelerating change, fans more readily associate permanence and continuity with their hometown franchise, which engenders a stronger, more lasting affection. Players move in and out, Diamondbacks is truncated to Dbacks and colors are thrown to the curb – but at least you can still take your kid to "The Diamond", just like your parents took you a generation earlier.
It’s been said that "…a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet" and perhaps fretting about a ballpark’s name is superficial. Maybe that continuity thing, about grandparents and progeny escorting one another to the very diamond of their respective youths, has been reduced to an illusion nowadays.
At the ballyard, however, ordinary people are entitled to our illusions. We paid for them – at least as much as the big banks.
Jersey Boy
Two indignities were borne today, at my first Arizona Fall League 
game. After parking the car, gratis, in the near empty lot, good cheer runneth over as my son and I neared the lone ticket window, with no line in sight. My mood soured, however, when the elderly box officer looked up from his coil of tickets and matter of factly inquired if I was a "senior". Ouch. I had always assumed that first dagger would be twisted by some gum popping teen, not a septuagenarian peering through a smoky window in obvious need of a cleaning. Look again, oldtimer – you and me are on opposite sides of Julio Franco!
And ten minutes prior to first pitch, just as the boy finished his $4.50 dog (the AFL really does have an MLB feel), a solicitous ballpark rep asked us if son would like to be batboy for the day – which he very much did. Was the AFL Batboy Assn. embroiled in an ugly work stoppage? More likely, the boy was the only age appropriate candidate in the entire park, between the preferred ages of ten and however young I thought I looked before purchasing a ticket.
In any case, his adult mentor suited him up in a Phoenix Desert Dogs jersey and instructed him on his duties, which as it turned out, were to be the Desert Dogs’ batboy – and batboy, ballboy and clubhouse concierge (French for "slave") for both teams.
For three and a half hours, the last minute rookie in shorts and sneakers retrieved not only bats, but every foul ball hit back to the screen, assembled and disassembled the on deck circle of weighted donuts and pine tar rags every half inning on each side of the field, and kept a fresh supply of nearly a hundred balls coming in batches of three or four to the home plate umpire – all within the flow of a major league paced game. He poured and ran drinks to the blue crew upon request and even passed a couple notes between dugouts. For close to four hours, the conscientious kid, doing the job of two or three boys, barely had time or inclination to sit down and drink or pee. It was 90′ in the sun; a 10 inning, 10 – 7 contest that would’ve dragged on half an hour longer had the lone lad not done his job so earnestly and well. My son is twelve years old.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. It’s a privilege, or at least an experience, 
to be a batboy in a dugout full of imminent major leaguers. Yes. In an exclusive postgame interview with this reporter, the preteen observed, for example, that players say the ‘f’ word "all the time", but when asked if any of the fifty or so coaches and players he served in both dugouts took a moment from their day to strike up a brief conversation or simply tell him he was ‘doing good’ on his first day, he replied, "No. Not really."
Despite his youth, he’s already familiar with little ups and downs in the working world. When a neighbor recently underpaid him for some yardwork, he refused parental intervention, chalking it up to an old lady’s honest mistake. Last week, a beligerent homeless person pestered him while voluntarily serving in a soup kitchen with some classmates. It shook him up a bit, but he’s moved on.
In the sixth inning, a lady fan remarked what a yeoman job he was doing, better than other AFL games she had seen, and that maybe he’d get "some autographs" out of it. I smiled weakly and replied, "We’ll see." The boy never asked for an autograph or souvenir, because he understands he’s there to do a job – not to be a self-serving nuisance.
When the game finally ended, on a boisterous walkoff slam by the Rays’ Elijah Dukes, the exhausted boy quietly gathered the jubilantly tossed helmets, the donuts, resin and pine tar rags for the last time and disappeared into the clubhouse to deposit them into equipment bags. His mentor thanked him and the boy reflexively thanked him back, as quickly naked athletes whooped it up after their long days. He unbuttoned and removed the sweat soaked Desert Dogs jersey, for another batboy on another day. As he climbed the dugout steps, empty handed, to meet up with his dad, the overseer called to take a cracked bat as a souvenir. The boy’s "Thanks!" betrayed the fact he was not smiling, as he held a damaged Kody Kirkland model for the car ride home.
I put my arm around the taciturn batboy, as we walked up the stadium steps. His tee shirt was drenched like the back of a Phoenix day laborer. He smelled like a man. I told him how proud I was of him, for working hard and keeping his end of the bargain.
"I’m never doing that again…at least not without money", he said in a determined but not quite angry tone.
Good for you, I thought to myself. He carried away something better than a Desert Dogs jersey, more valuable – even – than a couple deserved pats on the back: his self respect. My offer of a fast food pitstop on the way home was uncharacteristically declined.
"I just want to take a shower."
He headed straight for the bathroom, turned on the showerhead, and for the second time that afternoon, gave an adult the shirt off his back. He washed away the salt and innocence, retrieved a clean shirt, and managed a smile, well before his dad, just in time for supper.
Yes and No
Luis Gonzalez had happily smacked 59 delirious dingers that playoff year, but none of them made a sound quite like this one. It rumbled through the valley and rattled in the dell, and did not emanate from Luis Gonzalez.
Several autumns past, after rescue and before recovery, the New York Yankees won the AL East by 13.5 games, and promptly dispatched a pair of 100 win clubs to reach the 2001 World Series, where they were heavy favorites to win their fourth consecutive World Series title – and fifth in six years – against a 92-70 expansion team. That bears repeating: a fifth championship in six years.
Phoenicians hoped that cocky Curt Schilling would send a loud message on the Series’ Game 1 stage, about our team’s character, about belonging – and he certainly made memorable statements later, on the field and in the pressroom ( remember ‘mystique and aura’). But this was way before any of that endlessly documented bravado.
Specifically, in the top of the first inning of the first game, Schill grazed Derek Jeter on the hand with an up and in fastball. Moments later, Bernie Williams barely avoided a high pitch himself, and unbeknowst to Bernie, dinked an flukey run scoring duck beyond third base. 1-0 New York. Visiting Yankee fans laughed more than cheered, hooting that the Series was over before it really began. Expectant locals were shaken, some bit their lip. Enduring Dodger or Met fans was one thing, but this arrogant brand of largely fullfilled entitlement was quite another. What’s worse, Tony Womack led off the bottom half with an anemic, one handed wiff off righty Mike Mussina. Maybe the inebriated clowns from Yonkers on my left were on to something. Maybe this was a different kind of baseball for which Arizona was unprepared.
That’s when we heard it. The unmistakable sound. It came from the bat of unlikely NLCS MVP Craig Counsell, who launched a surprising game-tying homer into the first row of the right field bleachers. This sound was more than the snap of ash on horsehide. It echoed later, in the 2003 Game Six finale at a hushed Yankee Stadium, if you listened closely to the hum of Josh Beckett’s fastball. It rose from Jason Varitek’s hand when he shoved it into A-Rod’s face. It is the angry sound that questions convention, starts revolutions and teaches right from wrong…and it sounds something like this:
"No".
No, we are not the Padres, Braves and Mets, going gentle into that good night. No, we couldnt care less about your reputation. No, we’ve made plans.
Counsell, like so many others, had a poor hitting Series – and his homer didnt even win Game 1, a rather lopsided affair. But with due respect to all the mythic ballyhoo that followed, his swing made it a World Series to remember by delivering a shocking message at an early, critical juncture – to his teammates, the champion Yankees, and to players and fans everywhere. The message was No, and the Yankees have heard nothing much since.
Craig Counsell has been saying no his whole life. People have told him he’s too small or too slow to play professional baseball, and an objective comparison of his skill set with those of his peers confirms he has no business playing in the major leagues at all – let alone as an integral figure on two improbable World Series champions. He’s been a union rep, managing player interests and saying no to management. And despite being a decent enough fellow, he doesnt accomodate fans as universally as Gonzo. He’s the only Diamondback, according to Mark Grace, who stood up to Randy Johnson in the clubhouse, when the Unit’s self absorption threatened to distract from team goals.
That wasnt Gonzo’s job. Gonzo was this team’s Yes man. Counsell was its No.
We know that Couns hasn’t hit worth a hoot for some time now and it is time for him to go. It’s easy enough for the brain to process. And so we say, Thank You to little number 4, for the not so little hits and all those things most of us never saw. We should smile, looking back, and say, "Good Luck" as Craig Counsell heads out the door for that last time – but each time we do a familiar sound cuts us off, and says what’s really in our hearts.
No.
He Would Never Say No
Ever tire of hearing Diamondbacks broadcasters or ballplayers incessantly refer to everybody under the sun as "a great guy"? We do too. And there’ll be plenty more of it this weekend.
But as the 2006 season winds down, one wistful sentiment caught our attention, not because it’s an anecdote rich in detail, but because it bears the unmistakable aura of authenticity. The quotes in the story come from straight talking Craig Counsell, as he wraps up the most bitter season of his improbable, affirming career:
When Counsell first joined the D-Backs in 2000, he was assigned the locker next to [Luis] Gonzalez and found out firsthand just how generous his new teammate was.
"I could not believe how accommodating he was to everybody and how much time he gave of himself to anybody that asked anything of him," Counsell said.
"From media to employees to anybody. I was like, ‘Man, why did you say yes to that?’ He would never say no. I couldn’t believe that he would never say no.
Craig concludes:
There won’t be another player that represents the team better than Luis for a long time. We were all lucky to be part of a team that’s star player was also its best guy. There’s not too many cases in sports where you find that to be the case."
Touched By Greatness
This week’s family trip to Manhattan recalled an earlier visit paid to Gotham a generation ago, when I witnessed the greatest sporting event of my life. Despite having had the privilege of attending World Series games in three different decades (including the Mets’ 1969 clincher, left), this most lasting memory was not fashioned on a diamond.
Thirty lazy summers ago, two high school mates and I were scraping and painting weathered homes along Connecticut’s Gold Coast, when our crew leader cajoled me one Saturday to drive out to Long Island for “a picnic”. We weighted a cooler with Busch and Rolling Rock, and filled the gaps with pricier Lowenbraus, then splurged for sliced to order turkey sandwiches from the village deli, oblivious to a new, cheap startup around the corner, called Subway,
In the car, Dennis, Steve and I debated girls’ attributes until we picked up Steve’s girlfriend, our cue to stammer over college plans and make fun of parents and mutual teachers instead. Elvis Costello and The Boss blared through static free WNEW-FM in my mom’s 1973 top banana Dodge Dart. With a dog-eared Hagstrom’s map in lieu of GPS, the Dart was aimed for Elmont, NY, where Affirmed and Alydar would battle in the 1978 Belmont Stakes – and I would be touched by greatness.
Affirmed’s ongoing duel with Alydar piqued plenty of insider interest, but didnt really saturate public discourse. Seattle Slew had tripled the previous June, and the incomparable Secretariat just four years prior. It seemed as if racing’s Triple Crowns were won every other year, not unlike baseball’s Triple Crown award in the 1930′s. There was no ESPN or cable or blogosphere hyping the showdown several times each news cycle - just CBS’s traditional raceday coverage with Jack Whittaker and a scant minute on the evening news (the news was mostly news back then). I had never attended a horse race, but by way of Red Smith (we had The Times home delivered), knew these were two very good horses.
Despite stop and go traffic on the infamous LIE , mom’s Dart delivered us at Belmont unfashionably early. We lugged our laden cooler (coolers with wheels werent invented yet) into the attractive grassy area behind the main grandstand, where we spread a pair of blankets under an old shade tree. No one checked for glass bottles, or my underage plastic ID, or dreamed of searching a lady’s handbag. In those days, once you paid the $2 admission, you could haul in a brass band.
For several hours, our pimply faced foursome spied seventy thousand folks, many dressed as for Easter service, flit their way from Belmont’s backyard to the clubhouse and grandstand. One preliminary race blended into another….and another…as I people watched, drank my ration of beer, and eventually cased the outdoor wagering booths dotting the busy green. Gambling was far more insulated from society then; there were no state lotteries or scratch n picks in the stores, obviously nothing online; indeed, Atlantic City had just opened it’s first casino, Resorts Intl, that May. At seventeen, I had never bet on anything in my life.
Twenty minutes before the Stakes race, as hordes hurried towards the grandstand, the pastoral paddock called me from my blanket, so I stood by the rail of the winding walkway guiding entrants between the stalls and the track with a few dozen folks. Lesser known thoroughbreds pranced through, followed by Affirmed and celeb jockey Steve Cauthen, a year my senior, in garish pink silks. Affirmed was not as large as the others – a reddish chestnut runt with an elongated white diamond between his eyes. He looked, to me, more like an equine Danny Partridge than my notion of a champion athlete.
Moments later, the magnificent Alydar appeared, Jorge Valasquez up. 
Disney animators might have dreamt up this mount for some evil queen had he not been flesh and blood. Dark and immense, muscular, foreboding. He lingered in the walkway and, serendipitously, stopped right by me on the rail. I could have easily touched him - just reached out and patted him – but did not.
Based on this visual exam, I placed a cautious $5 show bet on Alydar, but the man at the window scolded that show bets were not allowed for this particular race. Puzzled and panicky, I blurted “Five on Alydar to win,then!”
Our gang of four finally abandoned our shady glade for the grandstand, where, amazingly, we found standing room right near the finish pole. At the opening bell, individual whoops and hollers died down as Affirmed took his customary lead towards the first turn. Around the second bend of the gargantuan oval (the sport’s largest, at 1 and 1/2 miles), individual voices gave way to the throng’s muffled hum - as Alydar challenged Affirmed into the back straight – but Affirmed would not yield.
The two dominant stallions that had monopolized hope sufficiently to cancel show betting, were running one-two and starting to separate from the field. Around the third turn, the low hum intensified into a sustained roar as Alydar stalked the champion from the outside, less than half a body length back.
I was, even at this age, enured to delirious crowd noise, having sat in Shea’s upper deck the moment Cleon Jones fell to a knee, clenching the final out of the 1969 World Series. There, fans yelled from their hearts and baptised a champion. At Belmont, the linear stand shrieked in tongues that became an endless human serpent of sound.
Around the final turn, still 300 yards from the finish, Alydar gained on Affirmed and the impossible din grew louder still. In an instant, the darker beast thrust his shoulder a foot past the favorite and the great animals rapidly exchanged leads, alternating head juts with every stride. They hurtled down the unforgiving straight, whipped and spurred by the frenzied rush of men.
In 1973, writer George Plimpton noticed a bevy of coeds near this very spot on the track, as Secretariat galloped by to victory. In the company of graceful thunder, half the young women were, Plimpton observed, weeping.
I didnt cry at Belmont Park, but was overwhelmed by the intensity of the race, mesmerized by the power and will of horses. Affirmed and Alydar, were for several moments, it seemed, one body -thundering down racing’s longest home stretch, exhausted, riding a wave of gutteral sound I’d never heard before – or since. When the athletes surged together, at the line, there was no clear victor. Perhaps that’s how it should have ended.
People, unlike horses, require that races have payouts and there be winners and losers. A photo confirmed the outcome.
Affirmed, by the white diamond on his nose.
Since that June day of my youth, a quarter century has come and gone without a single horse winning the Triple Crown. And in more than 100 years of stakes racing, one horse – and only one – has gallantly finished second in all three events.
Many regard their rivalry as the greatest in American racing history and the Belmont was its pinnacle.
Alydar infiltrates my thoughts more frequently, not less, each passing year of my life. Thoughts about how one defines terms like winner and champion; about the dignity of giving your best regardless of what others accomplish around you; about appreciating what life presents, in the moment, and the fleeting nature of fate.
It may be silly, but each summer, now approaching thirty, a middle aged man’s regret grows for having passed up a momentary chance, near the paddock, to gently extend a hand, and to touch greatness.
Man on The Moon
March 31, 1998 – What a grand, cathartic evening the Inaugural Game of the Diamondbacks franchise was. Fireworks, pageantry, stars human and celestial. The Suns’ gorilla careening from the impossibly high steel rafters to theatrically deliver and install brand new bases.The first breathtaking aperture of the world’s most advanced retractable stadium roof. A blessing, not from a priest or minister, but from a native American elder. Memorable rites of passage for a self-conscious cowtown desperate to celebrate and build upon their identity.
On the same date, Tampa Bay was celebrating their own coming out party. Stan Musial and Ted Williams each threw out ceremonial first pitches to the delight of Florida’s newest MLB fans.
Back in Phoenix, an eclectic group of local singers (Alice Cooper, Rob Halford, Nils Lofgren, Margo Reed, Sam Moore and two of the sisters Sledge) harmonized a disarmingly sweet version of the national anthem. The star chosen to throw out the first ball, however, remained secret. Colangelo, the master conductor, was an even money favorite to call his own number. He, it could be fairly said, earned it. A surprise appearance by ailing Barry Goldwater was the dark horse gameday buzz. Willie Mays and Rachel Robinson were in the house …either would have been a worthy and dynamite choice. Mainly, I was hoping my minor league burg wouldnt cart out a local B-lister like Acquanetta or the Mayor of Phoenix.
Instead, what Jerry did, on national television with all the dignitaries in attendance, was pick an unsuspecting six year old boy and girl to do the honors. From 331. Not some sponsor’s kids. Upper deck. By the foul pole. Children lucky to just be in the stadium. Young enough to be awed by the electric feel in the ballpark; old enough to appreciate this serendipity the rest of their lives.
At his moment of greatest professional triumph to date, Colangelo shared the spotlight to demonstrate that in life, as in its metaphorical ally, baseball – anything is possible. His childlike faith in possibility captained a fledgling franchise through challenge and disappointment – all the way to Luis Gonzalez’ improbable bleeder just beyond Derek Jeter’s grasp. Yes, the 2001 World Series was his crowning acheivement – but make no mistake as to this franchise’s defining moment. That which married this team to a city – and gave promise to any future glory. It was when Jerry handed the ball off to those kids.
Diamondhacks
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