Big League, Big Time: Birth of Arizona Diamondbacks

Book by Sherman Len

Chapter One: Pregame at the Expansion Draft
The organization was mobilized and operating in high gear. Kelly Wilson was stationed at the gate, making sure the invited guests received their scorecards and dog tags. The scorecards were for keeping track of the game, which on this day didn't involve strikes and balls, hits and runs, but names and positions -- the names of the players who were going to man the positions on the new team.
The dog tags were a giveaway from Bank One, little aluminum tablets hanging from chains, with "Bank One" printed on one side and "Miller Time, Expansion Draft Party, November 18, 1997," along with a glass of beer and the Diamondback logo, on the other. Bank One would soon give its name to the new ballpark -- an honor purchased at a dear price -- and had earned the right to produce whatever trinket it preferred. Nonetheless, dog tags didn't seem to suit the style of this crowd of season-ticket holders and local notables, and one had to wonder about the marketing thought behind the promotion. Perhaps it was intended as a public service for those guests who consumed too much Miller Lite during the festivities, fell into unconscious stupors, and were robbed of their wallets and ID; the dog tags left behind would provide the police with a clue as to the origin of the crime.
In any event, the dog tags were only a tiny, shiny piece of the entire promotional puzzle waiting at the southeast corner of Monroe and Second, outside on the Phoenix Symphony Hall Terrace. The scorecard and the dog tags represented more than just two random giveaways; they represented the key components of the Diamondback story: baseball and business.
The long line to enter the terrace had started forming hours before the 2 p.m. start of the draft and was teeming almost exclusively with adults. This was an unexpected development, seeing as this was somewhere near high noon on a Tuesday, midday during a typical workweek in a typically industrious American city. Weren't these people, more often than not wearing grown-up clothes -- ties and suits and panty hose and dresses -- supposed to be somewhere else, conferring and negotiating and constructing and manufacturing, paying the bills, building a better country, changing the world?
Kelly kept at it, handing out the trinkets and tally sheets, but the throng only kept swelling. Scott Brubaker, Kelly's boss and the vice president in charge of sales and marketing, passed by, impressed by the scene. He said the team had sent invitations to all the season-ticket holders (or, more specifically, since no one had yet to sit in an Arizona Diamondback seat, those who'd already mailed in big dollars to hold those seats just for them, forever), and had expected perhaps some two or three thousand to show up. The DBs were singularly adept at anticipating trends and demands, but this day's demand had apparently caught everyone by surprise, including Scott. Of course, this was not an unpleasant surprise. Just the opposite, in fact, for, as Scott was the first of many to comment that day, this was one more proof of how excited the good citizens of Arizona were by the entire baseball experience.
The event on the Symphony Hall Terrace was for the public, both outdoors and tented, readily accessible, and replete with food and games, country music, and cheerleaders. But that was the sideshow. The real action -- the real business -- was being conducted a couple of blocks away, in the massive ballroom inside the Arizona Civic Plaza.
This was draft headquarters, and contingents from all twenty-eight established major league teams were assembled to pay the piper. They had happily pocketed the $130-million entrance fee required of each of the supplicants from Phoenix and Tampa Bay, and now they had to fulfill their part of the bargain and let the Diamondbacks and the Devil Rays pluck some of the regulars from their ranks and begin to fashion squads of their own.
Most of the DBs' heavy hitters had convened in their war room off the ballroom. That's what they called it -- "the war room" -- without a trace of humor. Though the Diamondback organization publicly championed many admirable qualities, humor -- which counts among its prime ingredients unequal doses of spontaneity, some ironic detachment, a feel for the absurd, and an appropriate self-deprecating sense of proportion -- was not one of them. But then, this was no laughing matter, this was high finance, and God knows high finance has surely led to war often enough in the past.
Manager Buck Showalter was the commander in chief, surrounded by his general staff: general manager Joe Garagiola Jr., team president Richard Dozer, director of player development Mel Didier, director of scouting Don Mitchell, director of field operations Tommy Jones, draft coordinator Ralph Nelson, and some dozen other medical, field, and scouting aides. Roland Hemond was the point man in the ballroom, working the floor for any last-minute information, and relaying the DB draft selections from the war room to the podium, where they were then announced.
Until now, Buck Showalter had been a general without an army. Now Buck and his cohorts, huddled around the tables that formed a square that filled the room, surrounded by their charts and lists and profiles and calculations, were about to get some soldiers.
But the draft still awaited, and the festivities back on the terrace were well under way. All the team sponsors and ballpark vendors had been offered the opportunity to present their logos and wares during the party. (Offered might not be the precise word; one vendor quietly mentioned, when no one was looking, that the offer from the DBs had been a bit stronger than a suggestion, along with the suggestion that food was to be proffered free to the hungry patrons.)
Blimpies was slicing up six-foot-long sandwiches of ham and tomatoes and cheese and lettuce. Little Caesar's was passing out little pizzas. Ben & Jerry's was dishing out ice cream. Tacos, popcorn, hot dogs, soda, beer -- all there for the taking.
Aside from free food, games abounded, some more elaborate than others, all with prizes to be won. Tossing two out of three balls into rings at the America West Airlines booth yielded a plastic, inflatable hat with an America West airplane on top, suitable for young children. McDonald's had a speed-pitch competition. Pick up the ball and let it rip: a throw of up to thirty miles per hour won a coupon redeemable for a free ice cream cone at any Mickey D's, fifty mph snagged a small fries, and over fifty was the grand prize, if you'll excuse the expression -- one McDonald's hamburger.
Pepsi-Cola had a celebrity of sorts handling its action. The actress who served as the live-action model for the animated film Anastasia enthusiastically urged her contestants onto the basketball court. "You shoot, big boy," Anna Braga called out to one fellow, his tie flapping and his white dress shirt hanging over his sizable stomach, as he futilely chucked the ball up at the basket. "Show me how it's done!"
He failed to oblige, but enough did so that Pepsi ran out of their baseball caps in no time, with the Mountain Dew T-shirts soon to follow.
Miller Lite, in addition to being the overall sponsor of the affair, had a stall with the time-honored spin-the-wheel game, overseen by Miller Lite girls in tight shorts and Diamondback T-shirts. Spin the wheel and win whatever the needle pointed to when it stopped, though it was obvious that most of the men who lined up to play the game (if you can call spinning a wheel a game) weren't so much interested in the cup holders and other knickknacks as in the girls.
Fast food and games, free stuff and pretty girls -- all a prelude to the real fun. For though the DB hierarchy was, as a collective, missing the humor gene, the organization was supremely skilled in creating and directing fun.
Gina Giallonardo, marketing manager, strode into view, clad as most of the other Diamondbacks in an official sports shirt, with the purple and turquoise A stitched over the left breast. DB shirts were produced in a virtually endless variety, long sleeve and short, buttondown and pullover, on and on, all with the purple and turquoise A stitched somewhere on the material. A team shop was located right on the terrace, selling not only shirts but also hats and jackets and jerseys and baseballs and pennants and a host of other products, all displaying the purple and turquoise A. Literally cashing in on the Diamondback spirit, the shop did brisk business all day.
Meanwhile, Gina was moving fast and chattering into a walkie-talkie.
As she neared, there was a brief opening to ask what she was doing with that walkie-talkie.
"Nothing," Gina replied, still walking and talking.
This did not make sense, and the issue was pressed, forcing another reply.
"Putting out fires," she said, not slowing her pace.
In politics, that sort of answer was called a nonresponsive response and unavoidably begged the next question, i.e., What fires?
Gina smiled, in a fashion, and when she spoke, her tone implied that even the least astute listener should know what she was about to say. "I'm not telling you!"
The inescapable observation was that Gina, notwithstanding her gender, highlighted by a cascade of blonde hair, was a Diamondback through and through.
"You're right," she said, and then she was gone.
The action was heating up on the stage. Thom Brennaman, the television point man for the DBs, both as future play-by-play man when the team took the field and current administrator of their TV operation, was about to address the audience, which had overflowed from the booths surrounding the main stage and now filled the seats before him.
Thom was the prototypical Arizona Diamondback front-office type, from style: young, male, conservative in dress and manner; to substance: a true believer, impossibly, unflappably enthused about all things Diamondback and baseball. Brennaman, like so many of his colleagues, gave the impression of being professionally aggressive and personally settled, a modern version of the 1950s American executive ideal, half investment banker, half golf pro. One of the more peculiar impressions one was left with upon engaging a group of young DB officials was that even the single men in the organization somehow seemed married.
Thom's job today was twofold: to lead the festivities on the terrace on behalf of the DBs, and to comment on the draft on television for Fox Sports. His heart clearly belonged with the first role as he began by introducing the tall man who stood quietly to the side, whose appearance on the stage incited a mumbling through the people and an instant smattering of applause.
"We are going to have a very busy day here today," announced Thom, "and a man obviously who's done so much for this city, not only in athletics, but I think more importantly what he's done to try and make this a better town for each of us to live in -- "
Thom, a broadcast veteran at the age of thirty-two, was uncharacteristically nervous, and rambled on a bit before getting to the matter at hand.
" -- and the many things that he's done to make people's lives who are underprivileged in this area, or maybe people who are a little down on their luck, and oftentimes it goes overlooked, but unquestionably the man who has brought baseball to the Valley of the Sun. Please welcome Mr. Jerry Colangelo."
Cheers and whoops greeted Jerry Colangelo. From a near vantage point, it appeared that the managing general partner of the Arizona Diamondbacks, tall and fit, his broad shoulders accentuated by the double-breasted suits he usually wore, took the moment, and the acclaim, in stride. Proud but controlled. Overtly happy and almost smiling.
Jerry took the microphone from Thom. His ordinary manner of speaking was direct and quick and unhurried. It was the manner of a person accustomed to being listened to, and who accordingly told his story as he saw fit, starting wherever he chose. Jerry did not veer from his usual mode on this occasion.
"You can't imagine what's going on next door in the war room," he declared, "as we call it affectionately. But it's going to be a big, big day. I can tell you, for those who have the opportunity to be here the rest of the day and watch the draft unfold, don't leave early because at the end of the draft the trades will be announced , and there's going to be some interesting things that happen that will affect this franchise for a long time."
That got a grumble going in the rows, for there had been much discussion in the media in the preceding weeks about the many star ballplayers rumored to be on the trading block, owing either to their extravagant salaries, advancing ages, bad knees, or bad attitudes. Signing expansion-draft players was one thing, all-stars another. Jerry Colangelo and the Diamondbacks had already demonstrated a willingness to spend the proverbial whatever-it-took to garner the horses necessary to be major league competitive.
Thom picked up on that hint, and the two talked eagerly and yet vaguely about rumors and trades for a minute.
Vagueness only carried the conversation so far, and Thom moved on to the sure crowd-pleasing topic of...the crowd. "Here we are, an hour or two before the draft starts, and it's hard to even turn around in this place. I think you've known, obviously from the basketball side, these are the greatest basketball fans in America, and it looks like they're ready to do the same thing for baseball."
"Tommy," Jerry said, "I'm a little older than you -- "
"A lot older," interjected Brennaman, who had rapidly regained his customary easy-as-pie, glad-to-be-here TV élan.
The audience ooowwed in delight at Thom's audacity, but his boss played the good sport. "In fact, a lot older," he confirmed. "I can tell you when I first came here in 1968, I never would have dreamed that we would be sitting here today with all of the things that are about to unfold. We're blessed and fortunate to be living in a great place. It is the sports mecca of the country today. People recognize it as such. We are going to have the best venues in sports. I'm very proud to be associated and I want to thank our fans for making it all possible."
That was a cue if Thom ever heard one, and he ebulliently petitioned the assembly, "Give yourselves a round of applause! Absolutely!"
The men, women, and children burst into applause. It was obvious and corny, to be sure, but there was also a lot of truth in those words. Maybe -- definitely, actually -- Phoenix wasn't the "sports mecca" of the country. Not that one such place, one central sports shrine, definitively existed. A lot of cities had professional teams, with spanking new stadiums and television contracts and corporate sponsors. But Jerry Colangelo and Phoenix and the entire state of Arizona could not, would not, be denied. This was a great place to live. It was home to terrific sports venues. And it was a sports mecca, albeit one among many.

The boys of baseball had been gathering in Phoenix for almost a week in anticipation of the draft. Oh, a few women lurked in their ranks, and most of the men hadn't been boys in more than a few decades, but the atmosphere when any number of them gathered together was decidedly boyish, with a lot of ha...