azdad1978
Championship!!!!
Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 3, 2005 12:00 AM
If you're looking to root, root, root for the home team at spring training games this year, direct your applause to the Milwaukee Brewers - not the Diamondbacks.
A review of Major League Baseball rosters shows that the Wisconsin squad has an even dozen players who list Arizona as their permanent residence, while the team based in Phoenix has just six.
That's right, cheeseheads are twice as likely to be your neighbors.
The Diamondbacks also trail the Kansas City Royals, who have seven Arizona dwellers on their roster.
And if you played for a team in Wisconsin or Missouri, where would you spend the off-season?
As Cactus League games start up in the Valley today, Arizona's fancy lightly turns to baseball statistics, which are as much a part of the game as hot dogs and steroids.
There are 30 big-league rosters, each carrying 40 players, for a total of 1,200 young men who get paid a lot to work only seven months a year. Among them, 80 claim Arizona as their home state.
Bottom line: 6.7 percent of the guys playing major-league ball call themselves Arizonans.
A ballpark figure
For southpaw thinkers, that may not seem impressive. But Arizona accounts for less than 2 percent of the nation's population, so its baseball population is disproportionately huge. OK, not as huge as the number of players who live in Florida, California and Texas. Those three states combine as home sweet home for one-third of all major-leaguers.
Still, 6.7 percent is large enough that, hypothetically, an Arizona Republic editor might say to a reporter, "Well, why do they live here?"
Um, wouldn't it be for the same reason other people swarm to Arizona? It's the desert, ya know. Some may have grown up here, like Konerko, but baseball players show up for Rookie League or Fall League or spring training and they like it because of the sunshine and stuff. In fact, the National Weather Service ranks Arizona as the sunniest state, and Phoenix boasts about 300 blue-sky days a year. Tucson claims even more, up to 360, but those people always exaggerate.
Did I mention that some players meet pretty local girls and get married? Or that there are about 340 golf courses in the state? Pro baseball players love driving around in carts and hitting little white balls when they aren't at stadiums hitting bigger white balls. It relaxes them.
"Aha! Sounds like you've got that story started already."
Arizona also is a retirement haven for ballplayers who have hung up the spikes and glove, including 2005 Hall of Fame inductee Ryne Sandberg and Hall of Fame hopeful Ron Santo, who will wait for consideration yet another year.
"California, Florida and Arizona are the top three," said Doug Kindry of the Major League Players Alumni Association. "It drops off after that."
Training at home
In the Chicago Cubs locker room at Fitch Park in Mesa, outfielder Jerry Hairston Jr. explains why he is a resident.
"I just love the weather. The people are great here. I love the Scottsdale area."
Hairston, born in Des Moines, met his wife, Tanaha, while playing in the Arizona Fall League several years ago. They settled in. Then his family moved out from Chicago to join them.
"This is my first spring training here," says Hairston, who previously played for the Baltimore Orioles and whose brother, Scott, is on the Diamondbacks roster. "It works out great."
Chris Capuano, a pitcher for the Brewers, also fits the profile. Originally drafted by the Diamondbacks, Capuano found an apartment in Tucson four years ago when he started doing winter training there.
"My main job in the off-season is working out - running and lifting," says the Massachusetts native. "If there's 8 feet of snow on the ground. . . . Plus, I enjoy golf, and Arizona is a mecca for that."
Capuano made it to the Diamondbacks and moved to the Valley. Even after getting traded to Milwaukee last year he bought a condo in Scottsdale's desert hills. He said it suits his nomadic lifestyle, and having a bunch of other Brewers around is a bonus: "I hang out with them, and we work out together."
Shortstop Royce Clayton came to the Diamondbacks from the Colorado Rockies this winter and counted it as a homecoming: He already lived in Scottsdale. Clayton gave the usual reasons: golf, weather and ''a great place to raise your family."
But he also mentioned that Arizona is a sort of neutral ground. Ballplayers who live where they play wind up moving every time they get traded or sent down to the minors.
Clayton added that Arizona turned out to have a financial advantage as well: "You have to pay your state taxes here, but it's not nearly as high as California. Even in this day, a dollar goes a long way."
Tony Clark, in his first year as a Diamondback after a stint with the New York Yankees, could have lived in hometown San Diego, but he settled on Glendale for economic reasons.
"Early in my career, we were looking for a place that had comparable weather, especially in the winter, which is the time I'm usually home," Clark says. "And we were looking for a place that wasn't as expensive. We found ourselves down here."
Cubs pitcher Will Ohman also put down roots here five years ago, thanks to the Arizona Fall League.
It would have been impractical to live in his birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany.
Ohman rented a Mesa apartment. Then he got injured and came to the Valley for rehab. In the summer of 2001, after the big-league paychecks started coming in, Ohman became a Valley homeowner.
"It's just very convenient," he says. "If I were to buy a house in any other state, the most amount of time I could stay at home is four months. Living here, it's at least six months.
"And for me, the off-season is just a precious time being with my wife and living some semblance of a normal life."
By the numbers
Birthplaces of the Arizona dwellers fall across the nation and around the globe, including Los Mochis, in Mexico's Sinaloa state (Juan Castro, Glendale, infielder, Twins); Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico (Bengie Molina, Yuma, catcher, Angels); and Anchorage, Alaska (Curt Schilling, Paradise Valley, pitcher, Red Sox).
Speaking of Schilling, he and fellow Diamondbacks expatriate Randy Johnson of Scottsdale are prospective Hall of Famers. Otherwise, there seems to be a shortage of MVPs and Cy Young Award winners on the Grand Canyon State's roster.
On the other hand, Scottsdale could field a decent major-league club all by itself. Twenty-eight players live there, including Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood, Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez and Cardinals outfielder Reggie Sanders.
Phoenix has eight resident players, followed by Chandler, Glendale, Paradise Valley and Tucson each with six.
And if you're a true homer, here are four teams to boo because they have no Arizona-based players on their rosters: the Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Come to think of it, a true homer would boo the Dodgers and Giants anyway, just as a matter of principle.
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/special3/articles/0303azballplayers.html
The Arizona Republic
Mar. 3, 2005 12:00 AM
If you're looking to root, root, root for the home team at spring training games this year, direct your applause to the Milwaukee Brewers - not the Diamondbacks.
A review of Major League Baseball rosters shows that the Wisconsin squad has an even dozen players who list Arizona as their permanent residence, while the team based in Phoenix has just six.
That's right, cheeseheads are twice as likely to be your neighbors.
The Diamondbacks also trail the Kansas City Royals, who have seven Arizona dwellers on their roster.
And if you played for a team in Wisconsin or Missouri, where would you spend the off-season?
As Cactus League games start up in the Valley today, Arizona's fancy lightly turns to baseball statistics, which are as much a part of the game as hot dogs and steroids.
There are 30 big-league rosters, each carrying 40 players, for a total of 1,200 young men who get paid a lot to work only seven months a year. Among them, 80 claim Arizona as their home state.
Bottom line: 6.7 percent of the guys playing major-league ball call themselves Arizonans.
A ballpark figure
For southpaw thinkers, that may not seem impressive. But Arizona accounts for less than 2 percent of the nation's population, so its baseball population is disproportionately huge. OK, not as huge as the number of players who live in Florida, California and Texas. Those three states combine as home sweet home for one-third of all major-leaguers.
Still, 6.7 percent is large enough that, hypothetically, an Arizona Republic editor might say to a reporter, "Well, why do they live here?"
Um, wouldn't it be for the same reason other people swarm to Arizona? It's the desert, ya know. Some may have grown up here, like Konerko, but baseball players show up for Rookie League or Fall League or spring training and they like it because of the sunshine and stuff. In fact, the National Weather Service ranks Arizona as the sunniest state, and Phoenix boasts about 300 blue-sky days a year. Tucson claims even more, up to 360, but those people always exaggerate.
Did I mention that some players meet pretty local girls and get married? Or that there are about 340 golf courses in the state? Pro baseball players love driving around in carts and hitting little white balls when they aren't at stadiums hitting bigger white balls. It relaxes them.
"Aha! Sounds like you've got that story started already."
Arizona also is a retirement haven for ballplayers who have hung up the spikes and glove, including 2005 Hall of Fame inductee Ryne Sandberg and Hall of Fame hopeful Ron Santo, who will wait for consideration yet another year.
"California, Florida and Arizona are the top three," said Doug Kindry of the Major League Players Alumni Association. "It drops off after that."
Training at home
In the Chicago Cubs locker room at Fitch Park in Mesa, outfielder Jerry Hairston Jr. explains why he is a resident.
"I just love the weather. The people are great here. I love the Scottsdale area."
Hairston, born in Des Moines, met his wife, Tanaha, while playing in the Arizona Fall League several years ago. They settled in. Then his family moved out from Chicago to join them.
"This is my first spring training here," says Hairston, who previously played for the Baltimore Orioles and whose brother, Scott, is on the Diamondbacks roster. "It works out great."
Chris Capuano, a pitcher for the Brewers, also fits the profile. Originally drafted by the Diamondbacks, Capuano found an apartment in Tucson four years ago when he started doing winter training there.
"My main job in the off-season is working out - running and lifting," says the Massachusetts native. "If there's 8 feet of snow on the ground. . . . Plus, I enjoy golf, and Arizona is a mecca for that."
Capuano made it to the Diamondbacks and moved to the Valley. Even after getting traded to Milwaukee last year he bought a condo in Scottsdale's desert hills. He said it suits his nomadic lifestyle, and having a bunch of other Brewers around is a bonus: "I hang out with them, and we work out together."
Shortstop Royce Clayton came to the Diamondbacks from the Colorado Rockies this winter and counted it as a homecoming: He already lived in Scottsdale. Clayton gave the usual reasons: golf, weather and ''a great place to raise your family."
But he also mentioned that Arizona is a sort of neutral ground. Ballplayers who live where they play wind up moving every time they get traded or sent down to the minors.
Clayton added that Arizona turned out to have a financial advantage as well: "You have to pay your state taxes here, but it's not nearly as high as California. Even in this day, a dollar goes a long way."
Tony Clark, in his first year as a Diamondback after a stint with the New York Yankees, could have lived in hometown San Diego, but he settled on Glendale for economic reasons.
"Early in my career, we were looking for a place that had comparable weather, especially in the winter, which is the time I'm usually home," Clark says. "And we were looking for a place that wasn't as expensive. We found ourselves down here."
Cubs pitcher Will Ohman also put down roots here five years ago, thanks to the Arizona Fall League.
It would have been impractical to live in his birthplace: Frankfurt, Germany.
Ohman rented a Mesa apartment. Then he got injured and came to the Valley for rehab. In the summer of 2001, after the big-league paychecks started coming in, Ohman became a Valley homeowner.
"It's just very convenient," he says. "If I were to buy a house in any other state, the most amount of time I could stay at home is four months. Living here, it's at least six months.
"And for me, the off-season is just a precious time being with my wife and living some semblance of a normal life."
By the numbers
Birthplaces of the Arizona dwellers fall across the nation and around the globe, including Los Mochis, in Mexico's Sinaloa state (Juan Castro, Glendale, infielder, Twins); Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico (Bengie Molina, Yuma, catcher, Angels); and Anchorage, Alaska (Curt Schilling, Paradise Valley, pitcher, Red Sox).
Speaking of Schilling, he and fellow Diamondbacks expatriate Randy Johnson of Scottsdale are prospective Hall of Famers. Otherwise, there seems to be a shortage of MVPs and Cy Young Award winners on the Grand Canyon State's roster.
On the other hand, Scottsdale could field a decent major-league club all by itself. Twenty-eight players live there, including Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood, Diamondbacks outfielder Luis Gonzalez and Cardinals outfielder Reggie Sanders.
Phoenix has eight resident players, followed by Chandler, Glendale, Paradise Valley and Tucson each with six.
And if you're a true homer, here are four teams to boo because they have no Arizona-based players on their rosters: the Cincinnati Reds, Houston Astros, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers.
Come to think of it, a true homer would boo the Dodgers and Giants anyway, just as a matter of principle.
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/special3/articles/0303azballplayers.html
