D-Backs Potpourri: A Week Late and $40 Short

As you may have noticed, but probably not, there was no potpourri last week. That was because the job that pays me money that enables my internet connection that gets these takes off to you required me to be there at 8 AM, much earlier than you would usually go in at a live music venue on a Friday, to help out a children’s theater summer camp. That is usually the time I write these, because my time management skills are as apt as Torey Lovullo’s bullpen management skills, and last week was me putting in Bradley with the bases loaded and a one-run lead.

(Slightly mean? Yeah, but it’s not like he can block us more on twitter. Apparently the 2011 draft strategy in the first round for the Diamondbacks was “Varying types of social media sociopaths.”)

The only pithy remark I will make on working children’s theater is that kids are as loud as supersonic jets blasting BIG BAD BALLSY METAL HITS OF THE 80s when socializing with one-another, but turn into Mummenschanz without the visual flair when required to speak loudly onstage. It’s wild. We must harness this power for good.

On a whim, I went to the matinee game against the Dodgers on the 5th. I bought terrible $19 seats way in the upper deck of section 328. I was, at some points, the highest up person in the stadium probably. I could see a lot of confused birds. Walking up the steps in the upper deck gets you enough cardio to last half a year.

It was awesome.

The only way to take in a Diamondbacks-Dodgers game at Chase Field is in solitude. As mentioned before, the Dodger fans that come to Chase are way more aggro than the ones at Dodger Stadium. It’s annoying. They don’t like it when you point out the last Dodgers World Series title came at a time where I was unwittingly pooping myself, whereas the last Diamondbacks title came at a time where I was wittingly pooping myself. Big difference. You still get all the various sights and sounds and whatnot, but nobody is yelling at you for being happy about a David Peralta base hit.

I recommend more people sit there. Not too many, though. I need my space.

If I ever become mayor of Phoenix, I’d replace all the surreal advertisement and misinformed political billboards along I-10 with signs and diagrams reading “THIS IS HOW YOU MERGE LANES YOU IMPATIENT IDIOTS.”

As of yesterday, it’s been a very good sports year for teams born in the latter half of the 90s that originally wore purple but then transitioned to a red scheme. Think we can keep that going?

On the subject of other sports, (in this column space we are primarily knowledgeable about baseball but respect other sports..... except golf) something that the NHL does that every other league should do is focus championship celebrations squarely on the players. The captain of the team gets to hold the shiny trophy first, and he passes it along to another player and so on down the line.

Eventually, it gets to coaches, trainers, team staff, etc. At no point do you see a guy who made his fortune creating an app that makes you pay for 20 minutes of quiet time at a public library get up and give a speech.

I’ll admit to having a dim-on-ownership slant in my views and writing, but we didn’t just watch a bunch of old guys in ill-fitting suits put everything on the line to win a championship. They need to get out of the damn way and let the people who actually did the work do it. They can have the consolation of being obscenely rich, which is the best consolation of all.

I wonder if Stefan Chrichton and Silvino Bracho have ever talked about their favorite things to see on flights between Reno and Phoenix?

There has been much spilled on the subject of whether the D-Backs should buy or sell come trade deadline time. I’m here to offer my original take here:

Buy buy absolutely buy (barring another monthly collapse.)

The team just restocked their farm system with your throng of draft picks, so existent pieces are a little more expendable with some long-term insurance. The National League is a bloated mess with only the teams currently leading their divisions even kind of separating themselves from the pack. Be that team that does!

Granted, you may get into a situation where you buy but you get back a bunch of Jake Diekmans again, but nobody ever rolled dice without some risk of getting stabbed. (My family’s games of Monopoly might have been different from yours.)

You only get so many opportunities to make the playoffs, and in turn possibly go to the World Series. You need to seize upon all of them like you’re Elmyra from Tiny Toons. They don’t give out trophies for having the highest $/WAR ratio, despite what the Rays might tell you.