A little bit about me and my baseball philosophy

My love of baseball pretty much began in my hometown of Oakland, California, home of the A's. By the time I started watching A's games on a regular basis (I was in high school), it was the era of Canseco and McGwire, Dave Stewart and Dennis Eckersley, Tony LaRussa and Dave Duncan. There was another team nearby, a National League team called the Giants that provided a few good memories as well.

Fast forward to 1993. I am a senior at the University of Arizona. The Rockies and the Marlins begin play and there is talk that Jerry Colangelo will get a team for Phoenix the next time MLB expands (he didn't quite get it done that time). I get married, divorced and move to Atlanta in 1996.

Atlanta, Georgia, the home of the Chop. 50,000 hands going up and down in unison singing the Florida State fight chant. And I found myself in the upper deck of Fulton County Stadium, myself, doing just that. David Justice was still on the team, and of course a younger Chipper Jones and Glavine and Smoltz. It got to the point where I stopped going to the games because the stadium (and later the beautiful Turner Field) was so packed. Being a Braves fan in Atlanta is like being a 49er fan in San Francisco or a Cowboys fan in Dallas: winning is just the normal way of doing things.

So I move around, relocating to Oklahoma City, then Dallas, then Las vegas - and now I have been here in Phoenix for two years. When Colangelo got the D-backs in 1995 i was overjoyed. It was hard to follow the purple crew in the ATL for obvious reasons and I couldn't see the D-Backs when they came to Turner Field because of work conflicts. So it was a big treat to finally set foot in Chase Field and root for my beloved D-backs - even though the team was a far cry from the one I celebrated in 2001, watching on FOX from my apartment about 6 miles from Turner Field.

Generally, I like my baseball:

American League style. That means power, speed and pitching. Guys who can get on base and drive in the three-run HR with consistency. Pitchers who can mix up speeds and get a lot of K's. An infield that's like a vacuum cleaner. And leaping catches on the wall to rob the opposing dinger. The spectacle of baseball is what attracts me the most - the effort and athleticism of the guys who take the field.

I'm not much on statistics of player performance outside of ERA, RBI, HR totals and BA. Do NOT expect detailed charts and lists of WHIP or OPS or any of that stuff from me. I am much more of a casual fan who just wants to watch a good team play a hard fought game and have a good time doing it.

Stats can be overrated and we can forget about things like emotion, guts, glory. Baseball is a game, first and foremost, played by real people who have real intangibles that the numbers can only reflect, not predict 100%. If someone is having a slump at the plate it could be that he's going through personal issues in his family or his marriage or something like that, we don't know. It should not affect his professional demeanor "at work" but we all know it has to sometimes.

Also, baseball, while it is a game I love, is something I place in perspective. It is a pastime. A form of entertainment. I can go weeks without watching one game and come back and enjoy myself. I do not have the time or inclination to pore over stats or to keep up on every hot prospect in the low minors that won't see major league action for months or even years in some cases. The rest of my life is fairly full: I am a graphic designer with interests ranging from fine art to politics. The Diamondbacks are but one aspect of life i enjoy, and while I want the franchise to be successful, I also don't lose any sleep over the performance of Counsell or Ortiz.

This year's D-Backs are a joy and a disappointment. I'll get to that as we go along.