Welcome to NowHitting

Now Hitting has been designed as a clearing house of information about the Arizona Diamondbacks baseball club. This site is designed to provide information and news on the Diamondbacks as they begin their quest for a National League Western Division championship. Rather than having to search on multiple web sites to find information about the Diamondbacks, Now Hitting attempts to gather this data to a central location for your enjoyment. The site is a mixture of current information along with historical data covering the Arizona Diamondbacks Major League Baseball franchise.

NowHitting.com represents one fan's love affair with baseball. It began when a Major League Baseball franchise was awarded on March 9, 1995. The site chronicles the timeline of bringing baseball to the Phoenix area.  It is a result of countless hours of research to uncover the details about the team, its players, and baseball in general.  I invite you to travel along through the history of the Arizona Diamondbacks. The information and graphics are provided to help you become part of the game. Whether you are a Diamondbacks fan or just someone curious of what baseball in the desert is like, you should find something of interest to you. So I invite you to stop by often and see what's new with this National League West franchise and its fans.

NowHitting is a fan operated web site meaning there are fewer boundaries to what can and cannot be published. This results in a more honest and objective viewpoint when compared to more traditional team coverage.  NowHitting is an open communication tool and users are invited to state their opinions as they feel appropriate.  I will attempt to include various points of view so that the whole story can be told, not just what was in the press release.  So sit back and enjoy NowHitting.  I think you'll agree that it represents baseball for the new millennium.

About the Site

When people come across the site; many of them assume it is managed and maintained by the Arizona Diamondbacks or Major League Baseball Media. That is not the case. It was created out of equal parts of passion and desperation by one fan who at the time had a difficult time finding information about the Arizona Diamondbacks. The team was relatively new and did not yet have a loyal following. Likewise the Internet was just taking off and there were very few sites that provided information about baseball especially the newest franchise.

As information came out there was no centralized place to find all the data about the team. NowHitting was an attempt to become an information clearing house for Arizona Diamondbacks news. It was not designed to be the team web site nor was it envisioned to report only on press releases by the team or Major League Baseball. Instead it was built by one fan and offered for others to understand what it took to bring baseball to the Arizona desert and how a franchise was born.

Site Construction

Probably the second most popular question I am asked is what tools I uses to create the web site. (The first most popular question is "Why don't you get a life you baseball-loving geek?") So let me explain what tools that I used to create Now Hitting.

Site Framework

Now Hitting has as its framework a Content Management System (CMS). This CMS provides dynamic page creation with content stored in a database and served as needed. The CMS software is Joomla! which is open sourced and is one of the best content systems I have seen.

Editors

Although I have access to several web creation tools such as NetObjects Fusion, Adobe GoLive!, and Microsoft FrontPage; I write all the code by hand using Coda editor. This has more to do with my frustration with the code produced by the so-called tools and my perfectionist nature than with the lack of specific features. Besides, it allows me to remember my roots in software development and acts as a conduit between my past and my future. Of all the editors I have used, Coda has that mixture of editing features and preview modes that allows me to worry about the content rather than the tool.

Images

As you can see, I am an image junkie. I am a firm believer that graphics rule and chicks dig the long ball. I have collected graphics like most designated hitters mitts collect dust. Nearly all of the graphics used on this site have been substantially tweaked and modified. I use Adobe PhotoShop for much of the image work done. I also use Genuine Fractals and Noise Ninja.   I find these products complement each other well making my work much easier. For those cases where I need additional features or special effects, I use Deneba Canvas and MetaCreations Painter. These are both excellent tools that I would recommend. I seem to collect software and tools like baseball cards and I always seem to be playing with something new.

Ideas

Some of the areas for this site are pretty mainstream and easy to understand why they are there. Others, you just have to wonder what I was thinking. In my life, I have been branded a non-conformist, an intellectual and a philosopher. In that sense, I am your worst nightmare, a geek with a sense of humor. I am continually looking to expand the realm of the bizarre. If it is on the edge, I am interested.