subject: The Arizona Diamondbacks Tickets : The Team Won The Nl West Division Title Again [print this page] The Arizona Diamondbacks are a professional baseball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. They play in the West Division of Major League Baseball's National League. From 1998 to the present, they have played in Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark). Also known as the D-backs, Arizona has one World Series title, in 2001, becoming the fastest expansion team in the majors to win a championship, doing it in only 4 years since their expansion in 1998.
From the beginning, Colangelo wanted to market the Diamondbacks to a statewide fan base and not limit fan appeal to Phoenix and its suburbs. Although every Major League Baseball team cultivates fans from outside its immediate metropolitan area, and even though the greater Phoenix area has 2/3 of the statewide population, Colangelo still decided to call the team the "Arizona Diamondbacks" rather than the "Phoenix Diamondbacks". Many in Phoenix were not pleased by this; they felt this move lent a "small market" tincture to the team's name. However, fans in other areas of the state generally agreed with the move.
A series of team-sponsored fan motorcoach trips from Tucson to Bank One Ballpark were inaugurated for the opening season and are still in operation to this day (it is now known as the "Diamond Express"). The Diamondbacks are also known for the "Hometown Tour", held in January, where selected players, management and broadcasters make public appearances, hold autograph signings, etc., in various locations around Phoenix and Tucson, as well as many small and mid-sized towns in other areas of Arizona.
The Diamondbacks' first major league game was played against the Colorado Rockies on March 31, 1998, at Bank One Ballpark before a standing-room only crowd of 50,179. Tickets had gone on sale on January 10 and sold out before lunch. The Rockies won, 9/2, with Andy Benes on the mound for the Diamondbacks, and Travis Lee being the first player to hit, score, homer and drive in a run.
In their first five seasons of existence, the Diamondbacks won three division titles (1999, 2001, 2002) and one World Series (2001). In 1999, Arizona won 100 games in only its second season to win the NL West title. They lost to the New York Mets in four games in the NLDS.
Colangelo fired Showalter after a relatively disappointing 2000 season, and replaced him with Bob Brenly, the former Giants catcher and coach, who had up to that point been working as a color analyst on Diamondbacks television broadcasts.
In 2001, the team was led by two of the most dominant pitchers in all of baseball: Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling. Arizona had postseason victories over the St. Louis Cardinals (3/2 in the NLDS) and the Atlanta Braves (4/1 in the NLCS) to advance to the World Series where, in in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks in New York City, they beat the reigning champions, the New York Yankees, 4 to 3, to become the youngest expansion franchise to win the World Series (in just their fourth season of play). This was the first time since 1991 that the home team won all seven games of a World Series and the first time that a National League team won a World Series in which the home team won all seven games of a World Series.
An estimated orderly crowd of over 300,000 celebrated at the Diamondbacks victory parade, held at Bank One Ballpark and the surrounding downtown Phoenix streets on November 7, 2001.
This was the first major professional sports championship for the state of Arizona and the first for a team (in the four major North American professional sports leagues) owned or controlled by Colangelo, whose basketball Suns made it to the NBA Finals in 1976 and 1993 but lost both times. (Colangelo's Arizona Rattlers won the Arena Football League championship in 1994 and 1997.) Colangelo willingness to go into debt and acquire players through free agency would ultimately lead to one of the quickest free falls in major sports history when in just three years, the Diamondbacks would record one of the worst losing records in all of major league baseball by losing 111 games.
The team won the NL West Division Title again in 2002, but were swept out in the NLDS by the St. Louis Cardinals.
On May 8, after going 12/17 in 29 games, the Diamondbacks let manager Bob Melvin go and hired A. J. Hinch.The season ended with the Diamondbacks in last place and a record of 70 wins and 92 losses (.432 winning percentage). They played almost as well on the road as they did at home, going 34/47 on the road, while finishing 36/45 at home.
The Diamondbacks' tough year was blamed on a struggling offense (who had a collective .224 batting average), and even more so on an inadequate pitching staff, which had a collective ERA (Earned Run Average) of 4.18.
