Expansion Draft Day

On November 18, 1997, I took a day of vacation. This was the day I had been waiting for the past two and a half years. The Expansion Draft had arrived and finally the Arizona Diamondbacks would have a team. A celebration had been planned for the Phoenix Civic Plaza and I didn't want to miss a thing. My friend George Taylor and I went downtown early so that we would be assured a seat to view the draft. We planned to spend the entire day there. We selected our seats then went to experience all the activities around us. Sitting behind us were reporters from various newspapers in Japan. They were there to cover the draft and in particular Shigetoshi Hasegawa. All day, we diligently marked our expansion draft cards with each successive pick. We would provide the Japanese reporters with whatever tidbits of knowledge we knew about each pick. It was amazing how international baseball had become. We were from two completely different worlds and yet when we spoke of baseball, we each understood what the other was saying. It was a long day filled with many emotions as we heard each new Diamondback selected. We stayed throughout and listened intently as the post draft trades were announced. By midnight, it was time to go. We now had names and faces for the players we anticipated seeing when the inaugural season began.

Spring Training

The next major milestone the Arizona Diamondbacks accomplished was on February 27, 1998. This signified the first Spring Training game in the history of the franchise. The game took place in Tucson Arizona at the newly created Tucson Electric Park, spring home of the Diamondbacks and the Chicago White Sox. The park was appropriately named as the air was electrified with excitement for the Diamondbacks. Playing in front of a sell-out crowd of 11,298, the Diamondbacks put on quite a show. The team trailed the White Sox for the entire game until the ninth inning. With their last at-bats, Kelly Stinnett was hit by a pitch putting him on first base. The Diamondbacks then went to work moving the base runner into scoring position. With Stinnett on first, Hensley Meulens hit a single allowing Kelly to reach third. With runners on first and third, Edwin Diaz hit a fly ball to shallow left field. Stinnett tagged and rushed for home. The ball came to the plate but not before Kelly scored, winning the game 6-5. The crowd could not have asked for a more exciting game. Even though the temperatures were in the mid-forties at game time, no one seemed to mind. Baseball had arrived in Arizona, it warmed the heart just thinking about what that meant.