As Sam Sees It

The Major League baseball season has started and, if things went as planned, I was there for the first Arizona Diamondbacks game of the season. Hopefully, I walked in without my Bledsoe boot, but the odds of that did not appear great as this was being written. Just being there is enough for now.

The Diamondbacks have provided good sports entertainment throughout their history. We were privileged to see one of the really classic World Series of all time when the D-Backs defeated the New York Yankees four games to three in 2001. That was the year that Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson dominated first National League and then Yankee batters like no duo has ever done before. The two won over 50 games between them when you count the post-season. They finished first and second in strikeout totals and were among the leaders in every positive pitching statistic. They clearly and obviously made each other better.

This team been in the play-offs all but two years of its existence, the first (1998) and the last (2003). Expansion teams just don’t win division championships in their first year. Last year, the team fell victim to the injury bug that is, unfortunately, just a fact of life in baseball. The major victims were Johnson and Schilling. Amazingly, the team was still in the hunt for a division title and a play-off berth until the closing weeks of the season.

The 2004 Diamondbacks will feature many new faces. It is going to be hard, probably impossible, to replace Schilling. Craig Counsell, the thinking man’s ball-player who always made the right play, will be wearing a Milwaukee Brewer uniform. Tony Womack, who changed the way this team played the game and provided several of the most crucial and dramatic hits in franchise history, is also gone. Miguel Batista, who heard a different drummer and was an author, intellectual and great representative in the community, is now a Toronto Blue Jay.

Alex Citron is a star in the making if there ever was one and should be a fixture at shortstop for many years to come. Roberto Alomar has impressive credentials at second and Matt Kata will fill in nicely there, at short and at third. Richie Sexton should give the team a big power transfusion. Luis Gonzales and Steve Finley will likely continue to be their reliable selves at bat and in the field.

Brandon Webb has plenty of talent to be a top of the line Major League pitcher. In fact, he proved that last year in his rookie season. Pitching is, however, where there are some glaring questions to be answered. Who will be the real three, four and five starters? Will Johnson return to the form he demonstrated prior to last season? Will Elmer Dessens return to the form that led the D-Backs to trade Erubriel Durazo’s coveted bat for him?

The season is a long one, but the answers will begin to become clear long before October. It is my hope to still be going to that ball yard in September and contemplating the possibility of another World Series there in October. My preference would be that such would be the case and that Randy Johnson would face Curt Schilling of the Boston Red Sox in the first game.

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