PHOENIX – The midmorning sun was already starting to bake Wednesday when Dave Jones walked up to the Arizona Diamondbacks ticket window and asked for what would seem like the unattainable.
“Can I get tickets for tomorrow’s game?”
Tickets? One day before the start of the National League Championship Series? Yeah, right, buddy. The NLCS games scheduled at Coors Field have been sold out for days.
But the response was equally absurd: Yes.
“Phoenix is kind of blasé about stuff,” said Jones. He’s retired and lives just a few miles from the stadium – and hasn’t attended a game this year.
“It will fill up, but it will take until the last minute. You don’t have a lot of real hard-core fans here in Phoenix.”
Twenty-four hours before the first NLCS game against the Colorado Rockies, the Diamondbacks still had about 4,000 seats available for today’s game. Another 6,000 were available for Friday’s game.
It makes a fan wonder: In a state that hosts spring training for 12 major league franchises, where is the baseball fever?
Where’s Diamondbacks delirium?
“I think it’s terrible,” said Pat Ross, who has had season tickets since the Diamondbacks franchise came into existence 10 years ago.
“It’s typical Arizona, though. The team is so new, and we’ve had spring training here forever.”
Now, before Rockies start to snicker, they might take a look in the mirror. How many of them, before September, could have told Hawpe from Holliday?
Fans in Phoenix are quick to point out that both teams are made up of young up-and-comers and that both teams’ bandwagons have picked up a considerable number of riders in the last month.
Part of that, Arizona fans say, is that neither team has the heritage that builds strong fan bases.
“The present is pretty much all Arizona and Colorado have,” said Jim McLennan, who runs a blog, AZ Snakepit, devoted to all things Diamondbacks. “But as things develop, we’ll get more history and tradition.”
Except, Arizona already has more of a tradition than the Rockies in the postseason. In 2001, the Diamondbacks won a thrilling World Series against the New York Yankees. D-backs fan Derrick Schurz remembers watching Game 7 of the series with thousands of others on TVs hung outside the stadium.
“It was crazy,” he said.
The years after the big win, though, curdled some of that support, as the Diamondbacks lost often and team founding father Jerry Colangelo was bumped from the ownership group. The new owners changed the team’s colors and uniform and let local hero Luis Gonzalez go.
Ross, the longtime season-ticket holder, said she won’t wear clothing with the team’s new color, known as Sedona red. Others said they drifted away from the team as a result of the changes.
“I kind of out of spite stopped watching,” said Todd Fisher, who bought tickets for today’s game on Wednesday.
To be fair, this year’s Diamondbacks team has drawn fans back. Season-ticket holder Frank Gennario – a superfan who has never missed a Diamondbacks home game – said during the last playoff series that the atmosphere inside Chase Field was electric.
He expects the NLCS games to be the same, and he hopes that is a sign that Diamondbacks support in Phoenix is becoming more of a fixture.
“Now, next year if the team starts to tank, are we still going to see 45,000 people going to the ballpark? Absolutely not,” he said. “But I don’t think we’ll get back to that low of 18,000 people at a game. You are gaining fans.”
John Ingold: 720-929-0898 or jingold@denverpost.com
For every series, a sandwich
The folks at Marczyk Fine Foods have whipped up a special sandwich to celebrate the Rockies’ super season. “The Hot Rox” comes with a “rock pile” of meatballs covered in marinara sauce on a hoagie roll. The price: $5.52, which matches the Rockies’ winning percentage of 55.2.
Seventh-inning dip
Looking for a Rockies-centric snack to serve during the game? Pump up the purple passion with kalamata olive tapenade served in a halved eggplant.
Just cut an eggplant in half lengthwise and hollow out the shell. Rub the edges with a cut lemon and fill with the dip of your choice (tapenade has that lovely purple tint; get it premade at your local grocery store). Serve with purplish blue corn tortilla chips and you’ll have a spirited dish for the game.
Kristen Browning-Blas
A quiz:
All the jargon they can jabber
With all that airtime to fill, baseball announcers will undoubtedly be pulling out all the jargon they can remember. Is it all “inside baseball”? Or can you define these terms:
1. Backdoor slider
2. Baltimore chop
3. Cheese
4. Chin music
5. Mendoza line
6. Painting the black
7. Rhubarb
8. Seeing-eye single
9. Texas Leaguer
10. Tools of ignorance
The definitions
1. A pitch that appears to be out of the strike zone but then breaks back over the plate.
2. A ground ball that hits in front of home plate (or off of it) and takes a large hop over the infielder’s head.
3. Also “good cheese.” Refers to a good fastball.
4. A pitch that is high and inside.
5. A batting average of around .200.
6. When a pitcher throws the ball over the edge of the plate.
7. A fight or scuffle.
8. A soft ground ball that finds its way between infielders for a base hit.
9. A bloop hit that drops between an infielder and outfielder.
10.Catcher’s equipment.
By the numbers
11
Number of triples Juan Pierre hit in 2001, setting a team record
53
Number of bases stolen by Eric Young in 1996, another record-setting effort
108
Number of stitches on a baseball
690
Number of times Neifi Perez stepped up to the plate during the 1999 season. No one has done it more.
1992
Year in which The Topps Co. quit including gum in its standard baseball-card packs
