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3 Affiliate marketing tips to earn online dollars in the right way
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Humphreys talent set for Yongsan Festival of Arts
Image by USAG-Humphreys
Talent from all over Area III lit up the stage in the Community Activity Center, here, during competitions in February and March.
On Feb. 24, the local United Service Organizations office partnered with Family and Morale Welfare and Recreation to host Humphreys’ first “So You Think You Can Dance” competition.
The event packed the house, filling every seat, and even had audience members sitting on the floor cheering for their favorite performer. The night featured five acts displaying their best pop and lock, break dance, salsa and jive performances.
Judges from the Osan Air Base affiliate of Armed Forces Network and FMWR Marketing narrowed the competition to the top three. After the final dance off, Kendrick Ladd stood out with his crowd pleasing pop and lock moves and secured first place to move on to the final competition at Yongsan.
Another entrant for the arts festival was determined March 12, as the CAC hosted the first “Open Mic Night.” Featured among the performances were poets, bands, acoustic soloists and dancers, along with an unexpected surprise act, from hosts Dean Herrera and Lorenzo Ranches.
Colorful original poems, a rendition of ACDC’s “Back in Black” and a hip hop dance collaboration, kept the audience entertained and anxious for more.
After much deliberation, judges from AFN Osan, Humphreys FMWR Marketing, USO and Operation Rising Star finalist, Michel Gordon, revealed the final two. First place went to dance crew “Natural Remedy,” featuring Sidney Johnson, Paul Trebizo, Julian Johnson and Harry Fyks. The second place was awarded to the band “Original Element,” which included Michael Schuh, Kevin Garrett and Dominic Rivera.
The competition winners will represent Area III at the Festival of Arts at Yongsan on April 16.
U.S. Army photos by Steven Hoover
For more information on U.S. Army Garrison Humphreys and living and working in Korea visit: USAG-Humphreys’ official web site or check out our online videos.
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Arizona Diamondbacks 9, Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona (22)
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Arizona Diamondbacks 9, Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona (22)
Image by Ken Lund
Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark) is a baseball stadium located in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball. It opened in 1998 just in time for the Diamondbacks’ first game after coming to Arizona as an expansion team.
Construction on the park began in 1996, and was finished just before the Diamondbacks’ first season began, in 1998. It was only the second MLB stadium at the time to have a retractable roof (after Toronto’s SkyDome, now Rogers Centre; others are now in Houston, Milwaukee, and Seattle). It was also the first ballpark to feature natural grass in a retractable roof stadium.
It hosted Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 of the 2001 World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. The Diamondbacks won all four games at Chase Field, then known as Bank One Ballpark, and won the world championship that year in dramatic fashion.
Chase Field was originally named Bank One Ballpark after Bank One of Chicago, giving rise to its nickname ("The BOB"). After Bank One merged with New York-based Chase, the name change was announced on September 23, 2005.
In March 2006, Chase Field played host to three first-round games of the World Baseball Classic.
Chase Field is to be the home to the 2011 All-Star Game.
Chase Field’s roof is opened or closed depending on the game-time temperature. When the decision is made to close the roof, it is left open for as long as possible before game time in order to keep the grass alive. Even when closed, the park’s design allows just enough sunlight to play in true daylight without overheating the stadium.
The roof is closed three hours before game time, and a massive HVAC system drops the temperature inside the park 30 degrees by the time the gates open. Originally, the HVAC system didn’t work above row 25 of the upper level, exposing fans in the higher rows to the full force of the often-oppressive heat typical of Arizona summers. However, recent changes keep virtually all of the facility in air-conditioned comfort.
Chase Field also has a swimming pool, located in right center field, which is rented to patrons for ,500 a game. The ballpark also features a dirt strip between home plate and the pitcher’s mound, one of only two current ballparks to do so (Comerica Park in Detroit is the other). This dirt strip was very common in old-time ballparks.
The park’s foul territory is somewhat larger than is the case for most ballparks built in the 1990s. With 80% of the seats in foul territory, the upper deck is one of the highest in the majors. However, the park’s luxury boxes are tucked far under the third deck, which keeps the upper deck closer to the action.
New in the 2008 season is a brand new High Definition scoreboard in centerfield. The new scoreboard is 46 ft (14 m). high and 136 ft (41 m). wide and it cost million. It is the 2nd largest HD screen in Major League Baseball behind Kauffman Stadium.
The stadium was once the home of the Insight Bowl, a college football bowl game from 2001-2005. In 2006, the bowl game moved to Sun Devil Stadium, to replace the Fiesta Bowl, which moved to University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. The football configuration was notable because of the lack of nets behind the goalposts and the dugout behind the south end zone. The final Insight Bowl played at Chase was between the hometown Arizona State Sun Devils and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
The stadium also hosts occasional concerts and international soccer games. For football and soccer, the field is set up with the end lines perpendicular to the third-base line and temporary bleachers added on the east side.
Chase Field has also staged nine women’s college basketball games. The second game, which was played on December 18, 2006, was shortened by rain with four minutes and 18 seconds remaining and Arizona State leading Texas Tech 61-45. Venue staff closed the roof in an effort to finish the game, but officials deemed the court unsafe. In 2000, ASU had played Tennessee at the same facility.
Chase Field was also the site of the "Challenge at Chase", a college baseball game between Arizona State and Arizona. Arizona won both contests.[5] There was no game scheduled in 2008 and in 2009.[6]
In February 2006, the Professional Bull Riders hosted a Built Ford Tough Series bull riding event at this venue. Chris Shivers won this event with a total score of 181.5 points on two bulls, including an impressive 93.75 (out of 100) points on Taylor Made bucking bull, Smokeless Wardance, in the short-go round.
Monster Jam comes to the field every year.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Field
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.
Between 1940 and 1990, Phoenix jumped from the 99th largest city in the nation to the 9th largest. As such, it was frequently mentioned as a possible location for either a new or relocated MLB franchise. Baseball had a rich tradition in Arizona long before talk of bringing a big-league team even started. The state has been a frequent spring training site since 1946. With the large numbers of people relocating to the state from the Midwest and the Northeast, as well as from California, many teams (most notably the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers) have normally had large followings in Arizona.
The first serious attempt to land an expansion team for the Phoenix area was mounted by Elyse Doherty and Martin Stone, owner of the Phoenix Firebirds, the city’s Triple-A minor league baseball team and an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. In the late 1980s Stone approached St. Louis (football) Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill about sharing a proposed 70,000 seat domed stadium in Phoenix. It was taken for granted that a domed stadium was essential for a prospective baseball team to be a viable enterprise in the city. Phoenix is by far the hottest major city in North America; the average high temperature during baseball’s regular season is 99.1 °F, and temperatures above 120 °F in July and August are not unheard of, but have only occurred three times.
Bidwill, with plans already in the works to leave St. Louis, opted instead to sign a long term lease with Arizona State University to use its Sun Devil Stadium as the home of his soon-to-be Arizona-based NFL franchise. Since baseball-only stadiums were not seen as fiscally viable during that era, this effectively ended Stone’s bid.
In the fall of 1993, Jerry Colangelo, majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, the area’s NBA franchise, announced he was assembling an ownership group, "Arizona Baseball, Inc.," to apply for a Major League Baseball expansion team. This was after a great deal of lobbying by the Maricopa County Sports Authority, a local group formed to preserve Cactus League spring training in Arizona and eventually secure a Major League franchise for the state.
Colangelo’s group was so certain that they would be awarded a franchise that they held a name-the-team contest for it; they took out a full-page ad in the sports section of the February 13, 1995 edition of the state’s leading newspaper, the Arizona Republic. First prize was a pair of lifetime season tickets awarded to the person who submitted the winning entry. The winning choice was "Diamondbacks," after the Western diamondback, a rattlesnake native to the region known for injecting a large amount of venom when it strikes.
Colangelo’s bid received strong support from one of his friends, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and media reports say that then-acting Commissioner of Baseball and Milwaukee Brewers founder Bud Selig was also a strong supporter of Colangelo’s bid.[1]Plans were also made for a new retractable-roof ballpark, Bank One Ballpark, nicknamed the BOB, (renamed in 2005 to Chase Field) to be built in an industrial/warehouse district on the southeast edge of downtown Phoenix, across the street from the Suns’ America West Arena (now US Airways Center).
On March 9, 1995, Colangelo’s group was awarded a franchise to begin play for the 1998 season. A 0 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball. The Tampa Bay Area was also granted a franchise, the Devil Rays (to be based in St. Petersburg), at the same time.
According to the original press release from Colangelo’s group (which remained posted on the team website during the first few seasons) the chosen team colors were Arizona turquoise, copper, black and purple. "…Turquoise was chosen because the greenish-blue stone is indigenous to Arizona, copper because Arizona is one the nation’s top copper-producing states and purple because it has become a favorite color for Arizona sports fans, thanks to the success of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns."[2]
In the earliest days, the Diamondbacks operated basically as a subsidiary of the Suns; several executives and managers with the Suns and America West Arena were brought over to the Diamondbacks in similar roles.
There was some talk (which actually persisted for a few years after the awarding of the franchise) about the Diamondbacks being placed in the American League West. Colangelo strongly opposed this, pushing baseball officials to allow the new team to play in the National League West. Colangelo cited the relative close proximity of Phoenix to the other NL West cities; the similarities between the two fast-growing cities of Phoenix and Denver (home to the Colorado Rockies); the long history of Arizona tourism to San Diego; the Firebirds’ long history as the Giants’ top farm team; and the fact that Dodgers, Giants and Padres games were broadcast in the Phoenix and Tucson markets for many years.
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 entire 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 embraced the "Arizona" title as a positive move to help make the team a regional team for the entire state, rather than just for the state’s largest city and capitol.
Tucson, Arizona’s second largest city, located about a 90-minute drive southeast of Phoenix, was selected as the home for Diamondbacks spring training as well as the team’s top minor league affiliate, the Tucson Sidewinders. Radio and television broadcast deals were struck with affiliates in Tucson, Flagstaff, Prescott, and Las Vegas; among others.
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.
Two seasons before their first opening day, Colangelo hired Buck Showalter, the American League Manager of the Year in 1994 with the New York Yankees.
Their lower level minor league teams began play in 1997; the expansion draft was held that year as well.
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 National League West. 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 one of the most exciting series ever, in the wake of the September 11th 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). That classic World Series is chronicled in Charles Euchner’s book The Last Nine Innings (Sourcebooks, 2006). The series was also seen as the beginning of the end of the Yankees’ stranglehold on baseball glory, as profiled in Buster Olney’s book The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty. All games in that series were won by the home team.
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’s 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.
By the 2004 season, however, the Diamondbacks had dropped to a dismal 51-111 record, the worst in Major League Baseball that year and also one of the 10 worst records in the past 100 years of MLB, despite Johnson pitching a perfect game on May 18 of that season. Brenly was fired partway through the season and was replaced on an interim basis by coach Al Pedrique. Before the season co-MVP (with Johnson) of the 2001 World Series Curt Schilling had been traded to the Boston Red Sox, who won the World Series in 2004 and 2007.
By this time Colangelo and the other partners were embroiled in a dispute over the financial health and direction of the Diamondbacks (and notably including over 0 million dollars in deferred compensation to many players who were key members of the 2001 World Series winning team and others). He was forced to resign his managing general partner post in the late summer of 2004.
Colangelo sold his interest in the General Partnership of the Diamondbacks to a group of investors who were all involved as partners in the founding of the team in 1995. The investors include equal partners Ken Kendrick, Dale Jensen, Mike Chipman, and Jeffrey Royer. Jeff Moorad, a former sports agent, joined the partnership, and was named the team’s CEO; becoming its primary public face. Ken Kendrick became the managing general partner.
Colangelo was sharply criticized for plunging the team into over 0 million in debt to secure the services of expensive veterans in order to field a competitive team quickly. In a 2004 interview with columnist Hal Bodley of USA TODAY, Colangelo defended his actions:
“ I understand where some people felt I wasn’t doing it appropriately. The only analogy I can use is that Tampa Bay (the other ’98 expansion team) went one direction and where did they end up? (Six last-place finishes and low attendance)…We went another direction to establish a fan base because our investment was much larger than Tampa Bay’s. And we put so much money into our own stadium (0 million). After the first year and the decrease in season tickets, I was convinced we had to build a fan base …We bought three division titles, a World Series and established a fan base …
…I believe what we did will last a long, long time …Right or wrong, a number of teams today are in the million payroll range and competitive – Oakland, Minnesota, Texas are examples. Our goal was to get returns from our farm system. We built into our cash-flow that we would be paying out the deferments and that our payroll could drop to million for a few years …A few things hurt us …The economy was bad, and I was hoping for more national money (from baseball’s central fund) coming in.[5] ”
Also a factor in Colangelo’s leaving his post was his advancing age: Colangelo was 64 years of age in 2004, and had he not sold his sports franchises, upon his death, his family would have been faced with having to pay high estate taxes based on the value of the Diamondbacks as well as the Suns (which he sold to Robert Sarver in the spring of 2004).[6]
Following the 2004 season, the Diamondbacks hired Wally Backman to be the team’s manager. Backman was formerly manager of the Class A California League Lancaster JetHawks, one of the Diamondbacks’ minor-league affiliates. In a turn of events that proved to be a minor embarrassment for the reorganized ownership group, Backman was almost immediately fired after management learned, after the fact, of legal troubles and improprieties in Backman’s past. Former Seattle Mariners manager and Diamondbacks bench coach Bob Melvin became the new manager after only a ten-day tenure for Backman.
Following the Backman incident, the Diamondbacks spent heavily on free agents in order to re-build into a contender. The club signed 3B Troy Glaus, P Russ Ortiz, SS Royce Clayton, and 2B Craig Counsell, among others. They then traded Randy Johnson to the New York Yankees, for Javier Vazquez, Dioner Navarro, and Brad Halsey. They then turned around and dealt newly acquired catcher Dioner Navarro to the Dodgers for Shawn Green, and sent Shea Hillenbrand to the Toronto Blue Jays. Finally, they traded Casey Fossum to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for José Cruz, Jr.
The Diamondbacks, led by Melvin, finished the 2005 season with a record of 77 wins and 85 losses. However, this was a 26-game improvement over 2004, and actually good enough for second place in the woefully weak NL West, five games behind the San Diego Padres.
The Diamondbacks were considered by some to be the favorite to win the division after spending big money on the aforementioned free agents; however, injuries hurt the team’s chances of reaching its expected potential.
Starting pitcher Ortiz was out for some time which really hurt the pitching staff. Glaus played with a hurt knee all season. Of all the free agents that signed before the season, no one had a better season than first baseman Tony Clark. Clark started the season as a bench player and ended the season starting and being an important part of the team. Clark was rewarded with a new contract at the end of the season.
In October 2005 the Diamondbacks hired 35-year-old Josh Byrnes, assistant general manager of the Boston Red Sox, to replace the out-going Joe Garagiola, Jr. as Diamondbacks General Manager. Garagiola took a position in Major League Baseball’s main offices in New York City.
In a weak NL West division, the Diamondbacks failed to improve on their 2005 performance, finishing fourth with a slightly worse record than the year before. The season did include two excellent individual performances, however. 2B Orlando Hudson became the recipient of his second career Gold Glove Award, as announced on November 3. Hudson became only the sixth infielder in major league history to win a Gold Glove award in both the American and National Leagues. He first received the award after the 2005 season as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, and was traded to the Diamondbacks later that offseason. On November 14, it was announced that RHP Brandon Webb was the recipient of the Cy Young Award for the National League. Webb, a specialist in throwing the sinkerball, received 15 of 32 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Webb went 16-8 with a 3.10 ERA and in the 2006 season was named to his first All-Star team. San Diego Padres relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman was second place in the voting with 12 first-place votes and 77 points.
In preparation for the next season, the Diamondbacks made several significant trades during the offseason. The Diamondbacks and Brewers made a trade on November 25, 2006. Johnny Estrada, Greg Aquino, and Claudio Vargas were dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers for Doug Davis, Dana Eveland, and Dave Krynzel.[7] On Sunday January 7, it was announced that Randy Johnson would return to the Diamondbacks on a two year contract, pending a physical. He was obtained from the Yankees in exchange for Luis Vizcaino, Ross Ohlendorf, Alberto Gonzalez and Steven Jackson. The Yankees will pay million of Johnson’s million salary. The Diamondbacks and Florida Marlins made a deal March 26 to acquire RHP Yusmeiro Petit in exchange for Jorge Julio and cash.
The Diamondbacks announced in early September 2006 that their uniforms, which remained largely unchanged since the team’s first season, would be completely redesigned for the 2007 season.[8] Details were supposed to be kept from the public until after the 2006 postseason as per MLB rules, but the Diamondback page from the 2007 MLB Official Style Guide was somehow leaked around September 25, and local media broadcast printed the new design for all to see. Of great surprise to many fans was a brand new color scheme; apparently the original colors used by the franchise since Major League Baseball awarded it to Jerry Colangelo’s ownership group in 1995 were to be discontinued.
While some fans applauded the redesign, most of the reaction to the new color scheme, which included the changing of the historical purple and traditional Arizonan colors of copper and turquoise to a reddish color known as "Sedona Red" similar to that of the Phoenix Coyotes and Arizona Cardinals color schemes, was pointedly negative.[9][10][11]
Many fans went so far as to call the 2007 D-backs a new and completely different team, calling the 2007 season a "re-inaugural year"; some fans in Tucson had banners reading; "Arizona Diamondbacks 1998-2006 – Arizona D-Backs 2007- " or "Exit Diamondbacks Enter D-Backs" and "Exit Purple Enter Sedona."
The official unveiling of the uniforms came at a charity event on November 8 in nearby Scottsdale, where several of the players modeled the uniforms on a runway, and posed for publicity photos.
The distinctive "A" design remained unchanged save for the colors. The stylized snake-like "D" logo, also used since the early days for the road uniforms, was slightly redesigned and a completely new shoulder patch introduced. The lettering on the jerseys was completely redesigned.
"Sedona Red" became the dominant color scheme used throughout Chase Field and in all marketing and promotional materials for the Diamondback ballclub.
After winning the opening game of the season on March 31 on the road against the Cincinnati Reds, the Diamondbacks found themselves with the best record in Major League Baseball, 20-8, by the start of May. At that time, they also led the NL West by 6.5 games. They lost the first series in May against the New York Mets, the first series lost since the opening series against the Reds. The Diamondbacks continued to lead the NL west despite only being 47-48 at the All-Star break.
On July 17, 2008, Tony Clark was traded back to the D-backs from the San Diego Padres for a minor league pitcher, Evan Scribner.
On August 5, Dan Haren signed a four-year, .75 million deal with the Diamondbacks worth a guaranteed .25 million through 2012 and including a .5 million club option for 2013 with a .5 million buyout.[12]
Orlando Hudson, one of the more consistent offensive D-backs players in 2008, underwent season-ending surgery on his left wrist August 9 in the wake of a collision with catcher Brian McCann of the Atlanta Braves. Hudson is due to become a free agent at the end of the season and speculation is that he will not be re-signed with the Diamondbacks, because he wants money.[citation needed]
LF Eric Byrnes was on the 60-day disabled list from late June, with a torn left hamstring, and was out for the remainder of the season.
On August 11, 2008, Dallas Buck, RHP Micah Owings, and C Wilkin Castillo were traded to the Reds (in last place in the NL Central at the time) in exchange for OF Adam Dunn. Dunn, who was tied for the major league lead with 32 home runs, was expected to provide a significant boost to an offense that has struggled to score runs for most of the season. Dunn seemed quite positive about being traded to a ballclub in first place in its division in August.[13] The move was seen by some fans[who?] as a belated attempt by the D-backs to counter the trade by their division rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for Boston Red Sox power-hitting OF Manny Ramirez on July 31 and also to compensate for the injuries to Hudson and Byrnes, generally considered two of the more "power-hitting" Diamondbacks on a team which has relied heavily on pitching and defense in recent years.
Owings, once considered an excellent pitching prospect for the Diamondbacks, struggled in the 2008 campaign with a 7.09 ERA after April 21.[14][dated info]
On August 31, the Diamondbacks acquired former World Series MVP David Eckstein to fill the hole at secondbase which was opened after Orlando Hudson was placed on the disabled list. Eckstein was traded from the Toronto Blue Jays for Minor League pitcher Chad Beck.[15]
They finished the season with a record of 82-80, (good for second in the NL West to the Los Angeles Dodgers).
The primary television play-by-play voice for the team’s first nine seasons of play was Thom Brennaman, who also broadcasts baseball and college football games nationally for FOX Television. Brennaman was the TV announcer for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds (along with his father Marty Brennaman) before being hired by Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo in 1996, two years before the team would begin play.
In October 2006, Brennaman left the Diamondbacks to call games with his father for the Reds beginning in 2007, signing a 4-year deal (his FOX duties remained unchanged).
The English language flagship radio station is KTAR. Greg Schulte is the regular radio play-by-play voice, a 25-year veteran of sports radio in the Phoenix market, also well-known for his previous work on Phoenix Suns, Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University (ASU) broadcasts. In February 2007 he agreed to a contract extension through at least the 2011 season.
Jeff Munn is a backup radio play-by-play announcer; he served as the regular public address announcer at Chase Field in the early days of the franchise. He is well-known to many Phoenix area sports fans, having also served as the public address announcer for the Suns at America West Arena (now US Airways Center) in the 1990s. He is also the play-by-play radio voice for ASU women’s basketball.
On November 1, 2006, the team announced that the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2002, Daron Sutton, would be hired as the Diamondbacks primary TV play-by-play voice. Sutton was signed to a five-year contract with a team option for three more years. Sutton is considered one of the best of the younger generation of baseball broadcasters. His signature chants include "lets get some runs" when the D-Backs trail in late innings. Sutton’s father is Hall of Fame pitcher and current Atlanta Braves broadcaster Don Sutton.[16]
Former Diamondback and Chicago Cub Mark Grace and former Major League knuckleball pitcher Tom Candiotti were the Diamondbacks primary color analysts for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Former Diamondback player (and current Diamondbacks minority owner) Matt Williams also does color commentary on occasion, as does former Cardinals and NBC broadcast legend Joe Garagiola, Sr.., a longtime Phoenix-area resident and father of Joe Garagiola, Jr., the first GM of the Diamondbacks (as head of the Maricopa County Sports Authority in the early 1990s, Garagiola, Jr. was one of the primary people involved in Phoenix obtaining a Major League Baseball franchise).
The Diamondbacks announced in July 2007[17] that for the 2008 season, all regionally broadcast Diamondback TV games will be shown exclusively on FSN Arizona; and a few could possibly be shown on the national MLB on FOX telecasts. FSN Arizona is currently seen in 2.8 million households in Arizona & New Mexico. The previous flagship station, since the inaugural 1998 season, was KTVK, a popular over-the-air independent station in Phoenix.
Spanish broadcasts The flagship Spanish language radio station is KSUN AM 1400 with Miguel Quintana and Arthuro Ochoa as the regular announcers. They are sometimes joined by Richard Saenz or Oscar Soria.
Games are also televised in Spanish on KPHE-LP with Oscar Soria and Jerry Romo as the announcers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Diamondbacks
Arizona Diamondbacks 9, Los Angeles Dodgers 4, Chase Field, Phoenix, Arizona (33)
Image by Ken Lund
Chase Field (formerly Bank One Ballpark) is a baseball stadium located in downtown Phoenix, Arizona, and is the home of the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball. It opened in 1998 just in time for the Diamondbacks’ first game after coming to Arizona as an expansion team.
Construction on the park began in 1996, and was finished just before the Diamondbacks’ first season began, in 1998. It was only the second MLB stadium at the time to have a retractable roof (after Toronto’s SkyDome, now Rogers Centre; others are now in Houston, Milwaukee, and Seattle). It was also the first ballpark to feature natural grass in a retractable roof stadium.
It hosted Games 1, 2, 6, and 7 of the 2001 World Series between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the New York Yankees. The Diamondbacks won all four games at Chase Field, then known as Bank One Ballpark, and won the world championship that year in dramatic fashion.
Chase Field was originally named Bank One Ballpark after Bank One of Chicago, giving rise to its nickname ("The BOB"). After Bank One merged with New York-based Chase, the name change was announced on September 23, 2005.
In March 2006, Chase Field played host to three first-round games of the World Baseball Classic.
Chase Field is to be the home to the 2011 All-Star Game.
Chase Field’s roof is opened or closed depending on the game-time temperature. When the decision is made to close the roof, it is left open for as long as possible before game time in order to keep the grass alive. Even when closed, the park’s design allows just enough sunlight to play in true daylight without overheating the stadium.
The roof is closed three hours before game time, and a massive HVAC system drops the temperature inside the park 30 degrees by the time the gates open. Originally, the HVAC system didn’t work above row 25 of the upper level, exposing fans in the higher rows to the full force of the often-oppressive heat typical of Arizona summers. However, recent changes keep virtually all of the facility in air-conditioned comfort.
Chase Field also has a swimming pool, located in right center field, which is rented to patrons for ,500 a game. The ballpark also features a dirt strip between home plate and the pitcher’s mound, one of only two current ballparks to do so (Comerica Park in Detroit is the other). This dirt strip was very common in old-time ballparks.
The park’s foul territory is somewhat larger than is the case for most ballparks built in the 1990s. With 80% of the seats in foul territory, the upper deck is one of the highest in the majors. However, the park’s luxury boxes are tucked far under the third deck, which keeps the upper deck closer to the action.
New in the 2008 season is a brand new High Definition scoreboard in centerfield. The new scoreboard is 46 ft (14 m). high and 136 ft (41 m). wide and it cost million. It is the 2nd largest HD screen in Major League Baseball behind Kauffman Stadium.
The stadium was once the home of the Insight Bowl, a college football bowl game from 2001-2005. In 2006, the bowl game moved to Sun Devil Stadium, to replace the Fiesta Bowl, which moved to University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale. The football configuration was notable because of the lack of nets behind the goalposts and the dugout behind the south end zone. The final Insight Bowl played at Chase was between the hometown Arizona State Sun Devils and the Rutgers Scarlet Knights.
The stadium also hosts occasional concerts and international soccer games. For football and soccer, the field is set up with the end lines perpendicular to the third-base line and temporary bleachers added on the east side.
Chase Field has also staged nine women’s college basketball games. The second game, which was played on December 18, 2006, was shortened by rain with four minutes and 18 seconds remaining and Arizona State leading Texas Tech 61-45. Venue staff closed the roof in an effort to finish the game, but officials deemed the court unsafe. In 2000, ASU had played Tennessee at the same facility.
Chase Field was also the site of the "Challenge at Chase", a college baseball game between Arizona State and Arizona. Arizona won both contests.[5] There was no game scheduled in 2008 and in 2009.[6]
In February 2006, the Professional Bull Riders hosted a Built Ford Tough Series bull riding event at this venue. Chris Shivers won this event with a total score of 181.5 points on two bulls, including an impressive 93.75 (out of 100) points on Taylor Made bucking bull, Smokeless Wardance, in the short-go round.
Monster Jam comes to the field every year.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chase_Field
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.
Between 1940 and 1990, Phoenix jumped from the 99th largest city in the nation to the 9th largest. As such, it was frequently mentioned as a possible location for either a new or relocated MLB franchise. Baseball had a rich tradition in Arizona long before talk of bringing a big-league team even started. The state has been a frequent spring training site since 1946. With the large numbers of people relocating to the state from the Midwest and the Northeast, as well as from California, many teams (most notably the Chicago Cubs and the Los Angeles Dodgers) have normally had large followings in Arizona.
The first serious attempt to land an expansion team for the Phoenix area was mounted by Elyse Doherty and Martin Stone, owner of the Phoenix Firebirds, the city’s Triple-A minor league baseball team and an affiliate of the San Francisco Giants. In the late 1980s Stone approached St. Louis (football) Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill about sharing a proposed 70,000 seat domed stadium in Phoenix. It was taken for granted that a domed stadium was essential for a prospective baseball team to be a viable enterprise in the city. Phoenix is by far the hottest major city in North America; the average high temperature during baseball’s regular season is 99.1 °F, and temperatures above 120 °F in July and August are not unheard of, but have only occurred three times.
Bidwill, with plans already in the works to leave St. Louis, opted instead to sign a long term lease with Arizona State University to use its Sun Devil Stadium as the home of his soon-to-be Arizona-based NFL franchise. Since baseball-only stadiums were not seen as fiscally viable during that era, this effectively ended Stone’s bid.
In the fall of 1993, Jerry Colangelo, majority owner of the Phoenix Suns, the area’s NBA franchise, announced he was assembling an ownership group, "Arizona Baseball, Inc.," to apply for a Major League Baseball expansion team. This was after a great deal of lobbying by the Maricopa County Sports Authority, a local group formed to preserve Cactus League spring training in Arizona and eventually secure a Major League franchise for the state.
Colangelo’s group was so certain that they would be awarded a franchise that they held a name-the-team contest for it; they took out a full-page ad in the sports section of the February 13, 1995 edition of the state’s leading newspaper, the Arizona Republic. First prize was a pair of lifetime season tickets awarded to the person who submitted the winning entry. The winning choice was "Diamondbacks," after the Western diamondback, a rattlesnake native to the region known for injecting a large amount of venom when it strikes.
Colangelo’s bid received strong support from one of his friends, Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bulls owner Jerry Reinsdorf, and media reports say that then-acting Commissioner of Baseball and Milwaukee Brewers founder Bud Selig was also a strong supporter of Colangelo’s bid.[1]Plans were also made for a new retractable-roof ballpark, Bank One Ballpark, nicknamed the BOB, (renamed in 2005 to Chase Field) to be built in an industrial/warehouse district on the southeast edge of downtown Phoenix, across the street from the Suns’ America West Arena (now US Airways Center).
On March 9, 1995, Colangelo’s group was awarded a franchise to begin play for the 1998 season. A 0 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball. The Tampa Bay Area was also granted a franchise, the Devil Rays (to be based in St. Petersburg), at the same time.
According to the original press release from Colangelo’s group (which remained posted on the team website during the first few seasons) the chosen team colors were Arizona turquoise, copper, black and purple. "…Turquoise was chosen because the greenish-blue stone is indigenous to Arizona, copper because Arizona is one the nation’s top copper-producing states and purple because it has become a favorite color for Arizona sports fans, thanks to the success of the National Basketball Association’s Phoenix Suns."[2]
In the earliest days, the Diamondbacks operated basically as a subsidiary of the Suns; several executives and managers with the Suns and America West Arena were brought over to the Diamondbacks in similar roles.
There was some talk (which actually persisted for a few years after the awarding of the franchise) about the Diamondbacks being placed in the American League West. Colangelo strongly opposed this, pushing baseball officials to allow the new team to play in the National League West. Colangelo cited the relative close proximity of Phoenix to the other NL West cities; the similarities between the two fast-growing cities of Phoenix and Denver (home to the Colorado Rockies); the long history of Arizona tourism to San Diego; the Firebirds’ long history as the Giants’ top farm team; and the fact that Dodgers, Giants and Padres games were broadcast in the Phoenix and Tucson markets for many years.
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 entire 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 embraced the "Arizona" title as a positive move to help make the team a regional team for the entire state, rather than just for the state’s largest city and capitol.
Tucson, Arizona’s second largest city, located about a 90-minute drive southeast of Phoenix, was selected as the home for Diamondbacks spring training as well as the team’s top minor league affiliate, the Tucson Sidewinders. Radio and television broadcast deals were struck with affiliates in Tucson, Flagstaff, Prescott, and Las Vegas; among others.
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.
Two seasons before their first opening day, Colangelo hired Buck Showalter, the American League Manager of the Year in 1994 with the New York Yankees.
Their lower level minor league teams began play in 1997; the expansion draft was held that year as well.
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 National League West. 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 one of the most exciting series ever, in the wake of the September 11th 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). That classic World Series is chronicled in Charles Euchner’s book The Last Nine Innings (Sourcebooks, 2006). The series was also seen as the beginning of the end of the Yankees’ stranglehold on baseball glory, as profiled in Buster Olney’s book The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty. All games in that series were won by the home team.
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’s 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.
By the 2004 season, however, the Diamondbacks had dropped to a dismal 51-111 record, the worst in Major League Baseball that year and also one of the 10 worst records in the past 100 years of MLB, despite Johnson pitching a perfect game on May 18 of that season. Brenly was fired partway through the season and was replaced on an interim basis by coach Al Pedrique. Before the season co-MVP (with Johnson) of the 2001 World Series Curt Schilling had been traded to the Boston Red Sox, who won the World Series in 2004 and 2007.
By this time Colangelo and the other partners were embroiled in a dispute over the financial health and direction of the Diamondbacks (and notably including over 0 million dollars in deferred compensation to many players who were key members of the 2001 World Series winning team and others). He was forced to resign his managing general partner post in the late summer of 2004.
Colangelo sold his interest in the General Partnership of the Diamondbacks to a group of investors who were all involved as partners in the founding of the team in 1995. The investors include equal partners Ken Kendrick, Dale Jensen, Mike Chipman, and Jeffrey Royer. Jeff Moorad, a former sports agent, joined the partnership, and was named the team’s CEO; becoming its primary public face. Ken Kendrick became the managing general partner.
Colangelo was sharply criticized for plunging the team into over 0 million in debt to secure the services of expensive veterans in order to field a competitive team quickly. In a 2004 interview with columnist Hal Bodley of USA TODAY, Colangelo defended his actions:
“ I understand where some people felt I wasn’t doing it appropriately. The only analogy I can use is that Tampa Bay (the other ’98 expansion team) went one direction and where did they end up? (Six last-place finishes and low attendance)…We went another direction to establish a fan base because our investment was much larger than Tampa Bay’s. And we put so much money into our own stadium (0 million). After the first year and the decrease in season tickets, I was convinced we had to build a fan base …We bought three division titles, a World Series and established a fan base …
…I believe what we did will last a long, long time …Right or wrong, a number of teams today are in the million payroll range and competitive – Oakland, Minnesota, Texas are examples. Our goal was to get returns from our farm system. We built into our cash-flow that we would be paying out the deferments and that our payroll could drop to million for a few years …A few things hurt us …The economy was bad, and I was hoping for more national money (from baseball’s central fund) coming in.[5] ”
Also a factor in Colangelo’s leaving his post was his advancing age: Colangelo was 64 years of age in 2004, and had he not sold his sports franchises, upon his death, his family would have been faced with having to pay high estate taxes based on the value of the Diamondbacks as well as the Suns (which he sold to Robert Sarver in the spring of 2004).[6]
Following the 2004 season, the Diamondbacks hired Wally Backman to be the team’s manager. Backman was formerly manager of the Class A California League Lancaster JetHawks, one of the Diamondbacks’ minor-league affiliates. In a turn of events that proved to be a minor embarrassment for the reorganized ownership group, Backman was almost immediately fired after management learned, after the fact, of legal troubles and improprieties in Backman’s past. Former Seattle Mariners manager and Diamondbacks bench coach Bob Melvin became the new manager after only a ten-day tenure for Backman.
Following the Backman incident, the Diamondbacks spent heavily on free agents in order to re-build into a contender. The club signed 3B Troy Glaus, P Russ Ortiz, SS Royce Clayton, and 2B Craig Counsell, among others. They then traded Randy Johnson to the New York Yankees, for Javier Vazquez, Dioner Navarro, and Brad Halsey. They then turned around and dealt newly acquired catcher Dioner Navarro to the Dodgers for Shawn Green, and sent Shea Hillenbrand to the Toronto Blue Jays. Finally, they traded Casey Fossum to the Tampa Bay Devil Rays for José Cruz, Jr.
The Diamondbacks, led by Melvin, finished the 2005 season with a record of 77 wins and 85 losses. However, this was a 26-game improvement over 2004, and actually good enough for second place in the woefully weak NL West, five games behind the San Diego Padres.
The Diamondbacks were considered by some to be the favorite to win the division after spending big money on the aforementioned free agents; however, injuries hurt the team’s chances of reaching its expected potential.
Starting pitcher Ortiz was out for some time which really hurt the pitching staff. Glaus played with a hurt knee all season. Of all the free agents that signed before the season, no one had a better season than first baseman Tony Clark. Clark started the season as a bench player and ended the season starting and being an important part of the team. Clark was rewarded with a new contract at the end of the season.
In October 2005 the Diamondbacks hired 35-year-old Josh Byrnes, assistant general manager of the Boston Red Sox, to replace the out-going Joe Garagiola, Jr. as Diamondbacks General Manager. Garagiola took a position in Major League Baseball’s main offices in New York City.
In a weak NL West division, the Diamondbacks failed to improve on their 2005 performance, finishing fourth with a slightly worse record than the year before. The season did include two excellent individual performances, however. 2B Orlando Hudson became the recipient of his second career Gold Glove Award, as announced on November 3. Hudson became only the sixth infielder in major league history to win a Gold Glove award in both the American and National Leagues. He first received the award after the 2005 season as a member of the Toronto Blue Jays, and was traded to the Diamondbacks later that offseason. On November 14, it was announced that RHP Brandon Webb was the recipient of the Cy Young Award for the National League. Webb, a specialist in throwing the sinkerball, received 15 of 32 first-place votes in balloting by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Webb went 16-8 with a 3.10 ERA and in the 2006 season was named to his first All-Star team. San Diego Padres relief pitcher Trevor Hoffman was second place in the voting with 12 first-place votes and 77 points.
In preparation for the next season, the Diamondbacks made several significant trades during the offseason. The Diamondbacks and Brewers made a trade on November 25, 2006. Johnny Estrada, Greg Aquino, and Claudio Vargas were dealt to the Milwaukee Brewers for Doug Davis, Dana Eveland, and Dave Krynzel.[7] On Sunday January 7, it was announced that Randy Johnson would return to the Diamondbacks on a two year contract, pending a physical. He was obtained from the Yankees in exchange for Luis Vizcaino, Ross Ohlendorf, Alberto Gonzalez and Steven Jackson. The Yankees will pay million of Johnson’s million salary. The Diamondbacks and Florida Marlins made a deal March 26 to acquire RHP Yusmeiro Petit in exchange for Jorge Julio and cash.
The Diamondbacks announced in early September 2006 that their uniforms, which remained largely unchanged since the team’s first season, would be completely redesigned for the 2007 season.[8] Details were supposed to be kept from the public until after the 2006 postseason as per MLB rules, but the Diamondback page from the 2007 MLB Official Style Guide was somehow leaked around September 25, and local media broadcast printed the new design for all to see. Of great surprise to many fans was a brand new color scheme; apparently the original colors used by the franchise since Major League Baseball awarded it to Jerry Colangelo’s ownership group in 1995 were to be discontinued.
While some fans applauded the redesign, most of the reaction to the new color scheme, which included the changing of the historical purple and traditional Arizonan colors of copper and turquoise to a reddish color known as "Sedona Red" similar to that of the Phoenix Coyotes and Arizona Cardinals color schemes, was pointedly negative.[9][10][11]
Many fans went so far as to call the 2007 D-backs a new and completely different team, calling the 2007 season a "re-inaugural year"; some fans in Tucson had banners reading; "Arizona Diamondbacks 1998-2006 – Arizona D-Backs 2007- " or "Exit Diamondbacks Enter D-Backs" and "Exit Purple Enter Sedona."
The official unveiling of the uniforms came at a charity event on November 8 in nearby Scottsdale, where several of the players modeled the uniforms on a runway, and posed for publicity photos.
The distinctive "A" design remained unchanged save for the colors. The stylized snake-like "D" logo, also used since the early days for the road uniforms, was slightly redesigned and a completely new shoulder patch introduced. The lettering on the jerseys was completely redesigned.
"Sedona Red" became the dominant color scheme used throughout Chase Field and in all marketing and promotional materials for the Diamondback ballclub.
After winning the opening game of the season on March 31 on the road against the Cincinnati Reds, the Diamondbacks found themselves with the best record in Major League Baseball, 20-8, by the start of May. At that time, they also led the NL West by 6.5 games. They lost the first series in May against the New York Mets, the first series lost since the opening series against the Reds. The Diamondbacks continued to lead the NL west despite only being 47-48 at the All-Star break.
On July 17, 2008, Tony Clark was traded back to the D-backs from the San Diego Padres for a minor league pitcher, Evan Scribner.
On August 5, Dan Haren signed a four-year, .75 million deal with the Diamondbacks worth a guaranteed .25 million through 2012 and including a .5 million club option for 2013 with a .5 million buyout.[12]
Orlando Hudson, one of the more consistent offensive D-backs players in 2008, underwent season-ending surgery on his left wrist August 9 in the wake of a collision with catcher Brian McCann of the Atlanta Braves. Hudson is due to become a free agent at the end of the season and speculation is that he will not be re-signed with the Diamondbacks, because he wants money.[citation needed]
LF Eric Byrnes was on the 60-day disabled list from late June, with a torn left hamstring, and was out for the remainder of the season.
On August 11, 2008, Dallas Buck, RHP Micah Owings, and C Wilkin Castillo were traded to the Reds (in last place in the NL Central at the time) in exchange for OF Adam Dunn. Dunn, who was tied for the major league lead with 32 home runs, was expected to provide a significant boost to an offense that has struggled to score runs for most of the season. Dunn seemed quite positive about being traded to a ballclub in first place in its division in August.[13] The move was seen by some fans[who?] as a belated attempt by the D-backs to counter the trade by their division rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, for Boston Red Sox power-hitting OF Manny Ramirez on July 31 and also to compensate for the injuries to Hudson and Byrnes, generally considered two of the more "power-hitting" Diamondbacks on a team which has relied heavily on pitching and defense in recent years.
Owings, once considered an excellent pitching prospect for the Diamondbacks, struggled in the 2008 campaign with a 7.09 ERA after April 21.[14][dated info]
On August 31, the Diamondbacks acquired former World Series MVP David Eckstein to fill the hole at secondbase which was opened after Orlando Hudson was placed on the disabled list. Eckstein was traded from the Toronto Blue Jays for Minor League pitcher Chad Beck.[15]
They finished the season with a record of 82-80, (good for second in the NL West to the Los Angeles Dodgers).
The primary television play-by-play voice for the team’s first nine seasons of play was Thom Brennaman, who also broadcasts baseball and college football games nationally for FOX Television. Brennaman was the TV announcer for the Chicago Cubs and Cincinnati Reds (along with his father Marty Brennaman) before being hired by Diamondbacks founder Jerry Colangelo in 1996, two years before the team would begin play.
In October 2006, Brennaman left the Diamondbacks to call games with his father for the Reds beginning in 2007, signing a 4-year deal (his FOX duties remained unchanged).
The English language flagship radio station is KTAR. Greg Schulte is the regular radio play-by-play voice, a 25-year veteran of sports radio in the Phoenix market, also well-known for his previous work on Phoenix Suns, Arizona Cardinals and Arizona State University (ASU) broadcasts. In February 2007 he agreed to a contract extension through at least the 2011 season.
Jeff Munn is a backup radio play-by-play announcer; he served as the regular public address announcer at Chase Field in the early days of the franchise. He is well-known to many Phoenix area sports fans, having also served as the public address announcer for the Suns at America West Arena (now US Airways Center) in the 1990s. He is also the play-by-play radio voice for ASU women’s basketball.
On November 1, 2006, the team announced that the TV voice of the Milwaukee Brewers since 2002, Daron Sutton, would be hired as the Diamondbacks primary TV play-by-play voice. Sutton was signed to a five-year contract with a team option for three more years. Sutton is considered one of the best of the younger generation of baseball broadcasters. His signature chants include "lets get some runs" when the D-Backs trail in late innings. Sutton’s father is Hall of Fame pitcher and current Atlanta Braves broadcaster Don Sutton.[16]
Former Diamondback and Chicago Cub Mark Grace and former Major League knuckleball pitcher Tom Candiotti were the Diamondbacks primary color analysts for the 2006 and 2007 seasons. Former Diamondback player (and current Diamondbacks minority owner) Matt Williams also does color commentary on occasion, as does former Cardinals and NBC broadcast legend Joe Garagiola, Sr.., a longtime Phoenix-area resident and father of Joe Garagiola, Jr., the first GM of the Diamondbacks (as head of the Maricopa County Sports Authority in the early 1990s, Garagiola, Jr. was one of the primary people involved in Phoenix obtaining a Major League Baseball franchise).
The Diamondbacks announced in July 2007[17] that for the 2008 season, all regionally broadcast Diamondback TV games will be shown exclusively on FSN Arizona; and a few could possibly be shown on the national MLB on FOX telecasts. FSN Arizona is currently seen in 2.8 million households in Arizona & New Mexico. The previous flagship station, since the inaugural 1998 season, was KTVK, a popular over-the-air independent station in Phoenix.
Spanish broadcasts The flagship Spanish language radio station is KSUN AM 1400 with Miguel Quintana and Arthuro Ochoa as the regular announcers. They are sometimes joined by Richard Saenz or Oscar Soria.
Games are also televised in Spanish on KPHE-LP with Oscar Soria and Jerry Romo as the announcers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_Diamondbacks
Caught by Scahill.
A few nice affiliate programs directory images I found:
Caught by Scahill.
Image by eyewash
New Yorkers Protest the US0 BILLION (US TRILLION) Wall Street BAILOUT: Wall Street, NYC – September 25, 2008
Phototgrapher: a. golden, eyewash design – c. 2008.
I swear, Jeremy probably thinks I’m stalking him. As a matter of fact, it feels like every time I’m photographing, or attending a lecture, there pops up Jeremy Scahill. Admittedly, I do have a bit of a crush. OK, a BIG CRUSH. What’s NOT to love? Intelligent, good-looking, well-spoken, hard-working, a HUSTLER, an injustice investigator, a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute, an accomplished writer. Perhaps I am stalking him, because every New York female knows a good man HERE is HARD to find. We simply take the hard portion of the latter when we can and consider ourselves fortunate. Hahaha! If anyone happens to be zero degrees of separation from Mr. Scahill, please let him know he has an blushing admirer!
For more information on Scahill:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Scahill
blackwaterbook.com/
www.thenation.com/directory/bios/jeremy_scahill
Friends,
The richest 400 Americans — that’s right, just four-hundred people — own MORE than the bottom 150 million Americans COMBINED! 400 of the wealthiest Americans have got more stashed away than half the entire country! Their combined net worth is .6 trillion. During the eight years of the Bush Administration, their wealth has increased by nearly 0 billion — the same amount that they were demanding We give to them for the "bailout." Why don’t they just spend the money they made under Bush to bail themselves out? They’d still have nearly a trillion dollars left over to spread amongst themselves!
Of course, they are not going to do that — at least not voluntarily. George W. Bush was handed a 7 billion surplus when Bill Clinton left office. Because that money was OUR money and not HIS, he did what the rich prefer to do — spend it and never look back. Now we have a .5 trillion debt that will take seven generations from which to recover. Why — on –earth – did — our — "representatives" — give — these — robber — barons — $ US850 BILLION — of – OUR — money?
Last week, proposed my own bailout plan. My suggestions, listed below, were predicated on the singular and simple belief that the rich must pull themselves up by their own platinum bootstraps. Sorry, fellows, but you drilled it into our heads one too many times: THERE…IS…NO…FREE… LUNCH ~ PERIOD! And thank you for encouraging us to hate people on welfare! So, there should have been NO HANDOUTS FROM US TO YOU! Last Friday, after voting AGAINST this BAILOUT, in an unprecedented turn of events, the House FLIP-FLOPPED their "No" Vote & said "Yes", in a rush version of a "bailout" bill vote. IN SPITE OF THE PEOPLE’S OVERWHELMING DISAPPROVAL OF THIS BAILOUT BILL… IN SPITE OF MILLIONS OF CALLS FROM THE PEOPLE CRASHING WASHINGTON "representatives’" PHONE LINES…IN SPITE OF CRASHING OUR POLITICIAN’S WEBSITES…IN SPITE OF HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE PROTESTING AROUND THE COUNTRY… THEY VOTED FOR THIS BAILOUT! The People first succeeded on Monday with the House, but failed do it with the Senate and then THE HOUSE TURNED ON US TOO!
It is clear, though, we cannot simply continue protesting without proposing exactly what it is we think THESE IDIOTS should/’ve do/one. So, after consulting with a number of people smarter than Phil Gramm, here’s the proposal, now known as "Mike’s Rescue Plan." (From Michael Moore’s Bailout Plan) It has 10 simple, straightforward points. They are that you DIDN’T, BUT SHOULD’VE:
1. APPOINTED A SPECIAL PROSECUTOR TO CRIMINALLY INDICT ANYONE ON WALL STREET WHO KNOWINGLY CONTRIBUTED TO THIS COLLAPSE. Before any new money was expended, Congress should have committed, by resolution, to CRIMINALLY PROSECUTE ANYONE who had ANYTHING to do with the attempted SACKING OF OUR ECONOMY. This means that anyone who committed insider trading, securities fraud or any action that helped bring about this collapse should have and MUST GO TO JAIL! This Congress SHOULD HAVE called for a Special Prosecutor who would vigorously go after everyone who created the mess, and anyone else who attempts to scam the public in future. (I like Elliot Spitzer ~ so, he played a little hanky-panky…Wall Street hates him & this is a GOOD thing.)
2. THE RICH SHOULD HAVE PAID FOR THEIR OWN BAILOUT! They may have to live in 5 houses instead of 7. They may have to drive 9 cars instead of 13. The chef for their mini-terriers may have to be reassigned. But there is no way in hell, after forcing family incomes to go down more than ,000 dollars during the Bush years, that working people and the middle class should have to fork over one dime to underwrite the next yacht purchase.
If they truly needed the 0 billion they say they needed, well, here is an easy way they could have raised it:
a) Every couple makeing over a million dollars a year and every single taxpayer who makes over 0,000 a year should pay a 10% surcharge tax for five years. (It’s the Senator Sanders plan. He’s like Colonel Sanders, only he’s out to fry the right chickens.) That means the rich would have still been paying less income tax than when Carter was president. That would have raise a total of 0 billion.
b) Like nearly every other democracy, they should have charged a 0.25% tax on every stock transaction. This would have raised more than 0 billion in a year.
c) Because every stockholder is a patriotic American, stockholders should have forgone receiving a dividend check for ONE quarter and instead this money would have gone the treasury to help pay for the bullsh*t bailout.
d) 25% of major U.S. corporations currently pay NO federal income tax. Federal corporate tax revenues currently amount to 1.7% of the GDP compared to 5% in the 1950s. If we raised the corporate income tax BACK to the levels of the 1950s, this would give us an extra 0 billion.
All of this combined should have been enough to end the calamity. The rich would have gotten to keep their mansions and their servants and our United States government ("COUNTRY FIRST!") would’ve have a little leftover to repair some roads, bridges and schools…
3. YOU SHOULD HAVE BAIL OUT THE PEOPLE LOSING THEIR HOMES, NOT THE PEOPLE WHO WILL BUILD AN EIGHTH HOME! There are 1.3 million homes in foreclosure right now. That is what is at the heart of this problem. So, instead of giving the money to the banks as a gift, they should have paid down each of these mortgages by 0,000. They should have forced the banks to renegotiate the mortgage so the homeowner could pay on its current value. To insure that this help wouldn’t go to speculators and those who tried to making money by flipping houses, the bailout should have only been for people’s primary residences. And, in return for the 0K pay-down on the existing mortgage, the government would have gotten to share in the holding of the mortgage so it could get some of its money back. Thus, the total initial cost of fixing the mortgage crisis at its roots (instead of with the greedy lenders) is 0 billion, not 0 BILLION.
And let’s set the record straight. People who have defaulted on their mortgages are not "bad risks." They are our fellow Americans, and all they wanted was what we all want: a home to call their own. But, during the Bush years, millions of the People lost the decent paying jobs they had. SIX MILLION fell into poverty! SEVEN MILLION lost their health insurance! And, every one of them saw their real wages go DOWN by ,000! Those who DARE look down on these Americans who got hit with one bad break after another should be ASHAMED.! We are a better, stronger, safer and happier society when all of our citizens can afford to live in a home they own.
4. THERE SHOULD HAVE BEEN A STIPULATION THAT IF YOUR BANK OR COMPANY GOT ANY OF OUR MONEY IN A "BAILOUT," THEN WE OWN YOU. Sorry, that’s how it’s done. If the bank gives me money so I can buy a house, the bank "owns" that house until I pay it all back — with interest. Same deal for Wall Street. Whatever money you need to stay afloat, if our government considers you a safe risk — and necessary for the good of the country — then you can get a loan, but WE SHOULD OWN YOU. If you default, we will sell you. This is how the Swedish government did it and it worked.
5. ALL REGULATIONS SHOULD HAVE BEEN BE RESTORED. THE REAGAN REVOLUTION IS DEAD! This catastrophe happened because we let the fox have the keys to the hen-house. In 1999, Phil Gramm authored a bill to remove all the regulations that governed Wall Street and our banking system. The bill passed and Clinton signed it. Here’s what Sen.Phil Gramm, McCain’s chief economic advisor, said at the bill signing:
"In the 1930s … it was believed that government was the answer. It was believed that stability and growth came from government overriding the functioning of free markets.
"We are here today to repeal [that] because we have learned that government is not the answer. We have learned that freedom and competition are the answers. We have learned that we promote economic growth and we promote stability by having competition and freedom.
"I am proud to be here because this is an important bill; it is a deregulatory bill. I believe that that is the wave of the future, and I am awfully proud to have been a part of making it a reality."
FOR THIS NOT TO REOCCUR, This BILL SHOULD HAVE BEEN REPEALED! Bill Clinton could have helped by leading the effort for the repeal of the Gramm bill and the reinstating of even tougher regulations regarding our financial institutions. And when they were done with that, they should have restored the regulations for the airlines, the inspection of our food, the oil industry, OSHA, and every other entity that affects our daily lives. All oversight provisions for any "bailout" should have had enforcement monies attached to them and criminal penalties for all offenders.
6. IF IT’S TOO BIG TO FAIL, THEN THAT MEANS IT’S TOO BIG TO EXIST! Allowing the creation of these mega-mergers and not enforcing the monopoly and anti-trust laws has allowed a number of financial institutions and corporations to become so large, the very thought of their collapse means an even bigger collapse across the entire economy. No ONE or TWO companies should EVER have this kind of power! The so-called "economic Pearl Harbor" can’t happen when you have hundreds — thousands — of institutions where people have their money. When we have a dozen auto companies, if one goes belly-up, we DON’T FACE A NATIONAL DISASTER! If we have three separately-owned daily newspapers in your town, then one media company can’t call all the shots (I know… What am I thinking?! Who reads a paper anymore? Sure glad all those mergers and buyouts left us with a STRONG and "FREE" press!). Laws Should have been enacted to prevent companies from being so large and dominant that with one slingshot to the eye, the GIANT FALLS and DIES. And no institution should be allowed to set up money schemes that NO ONE understands. If you can’t explain it in two sentences, you shouldn’t be taking anyone’s money!
7. NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD EVER BE PAID MORE THAN 40 TIMES THEIR AVERAGE EMPLOYEE, AND NO EXECUTIVE SHOULD RECEIVE ANY KIND OF "PARACHUTE" OTHER THAN THE VERY GENEROUS SALARY HE OR SHE MADE WHILE WORKING FOR THE COMPANY. In 1980, the average American CEO made 45 times what their employees made. By 2003, they were making 254 times what their workers made. After 8 years of Bush, they now make over 400 times what their average employee makes. How We have allowed this to happen at publicly held companies is beyond reason. In Britain, the average CEO makes 28 times what their average employee makes. In Japan, it’s only 17 times! The last I heard, the CEO of Toyota was living the high life in Tokyo. How does he do it on so little money? Seriously, this is an OUTRAGE! We have created the mess we’re in by letting the people at the top become bloated beyond belief with millions of dollars. THIS HAS TO STOP! Not only should no executive who receives help out of this mess profit from it, but any executive who was in charge of running his company into the ground should be FIRED before the company receives ANY help.
8. CONGRESS SHOULD HAVE STRENGTHENED THE FDIC AND MADE IT A MODEL FOR PROTECTING NOT ONLY PEOPLE’S SAVINGS, BUT ALSO THEIR PENSIONS AND THEIR HOMES. Obama was correct to propose expanding FDIC protection of people’s savings in their banks to 0,000. But, this same sort of government insurance must be given to our NEVER have to worry about whether or not the money they’ve put away for their old age will be there. This should have meant strict government oversight of companies who manage their employees’ funds — or perhaps it means the companies should have been forced to turn over those funds and their management to the government? People’s private retirement funds must also be protected, but perhaps it’s time to consider not having one’s retirement invested in the casino known as the stock market??? Our government should have a solemn duty to guarantee that no one who grows old in this country has to worry about becoming destitute.
9. EVERYBODY NEEDS TO TAKE A DEEP BREATH, CALM DOWN, AND NOT LET FEAR RULE THE DAY. Turn off your TVs! We are NOT in the Second Great Depression. The sky is NOT falling, Chicken Little! Pundits and politicians have lied to us so FAST and FURIOUS it’s hard not to be affected by all the fear mongering. Even I wrote to and repeated what I heard on the news last week, that the Dow had the biggest one day drop in its history. Well, that was true in terms of points, but its 7% drop came nowhere close to Black Monday in 1987 when the stock market in one day lost 23% of its value. In the ’80s, 3,000 banks closed, but America didn’t go out of business. These institutions have always had their ups and downs and eventually it works out. It has to, because the rich do not like their wealth being disrupted! They have a vested interest in calming things down and getting back into their Jacuzzis before they slip into their million thread-count sheets to drift off to a peaceful, Vodka tonic and Ambien-induced slumber.
As crazy as things are right now, tens of thousands of people got a car loan last week. Thousands went to the bank and got a mortgage to buy a home. Students just back to college found banks more than happy to put them into hock for the next 15 years with a student loan. I was even pre-approved for a USK personal loan. Yes, life has gone on with little-or-no-change (other than the whopping 6.1% unemployment rate, but that happened last month). Not a single person lost any of his/her monies in bank, or a treasury note, or in a CD. And, the perhaps the most amazing thing is that the American public FINALLY didn’t buy the scare campaign. The citizens didn’t blink, instead telling Congress to take that bailout and shove it. THAT was impressive. Why didn’t the population succumb to the fright-filled warnings from their president and his cronies? Well, you can only say ‘Saddam has the bomb’ so many times before the people realize you’re a lying sack of shit. After eight long years, the nation is worn out and simply can’t take it any longer. The WORLD is fed up & I don’t blame them.
10. THEY SHOULD HAVE CREATED A NATIONAL BANK, A "PEOPLE’S BANK." Since they’re really itching to print up a trillion dollars, instead of giving it to a few rich people, why don’t We give it to ourselves? Now that We own Freddie and Fannie, why not set up a People’s bank? One that can provide low-interest loans for all sorts of people who want to own a home, start a small business, go to school, come up with the cure for cancer or create the next great invention. And, now that we own AIG – the country’s largest insurance company – let’s take the next step and PROVIDE HEALTH INSURANCE FOR EVERYONE. MEDICARE FOR ALL! It will SAVE us SO MUCH MONEY in the LONG RUN (not to mention bring peace of mind to all). And, America won’t be 12th on the life expectancy list! We’ll be able to have a longer lifespan, enjoying our government-protected pension and will live to see the day when the corporate criminals who caused this much misery are let out of prison so that We can help re-acclimate them to plain old ordinary, civilian life — a life with ONE nice home and ONE gas-free car invented with help from the People’s Bank.
P.S. Call your Senators NOW !!! —> www.visi.com/juan/congress/
Since they voted against passing the extension of unemployment benefits and skipped out to "campaign" to us to be re-elected…call them and tell them you will vote for the other "guy" if they don’t get their act together!
—————————————————–
UPDATE: THE PEOPLE HAVE VOTED! A HISTORIC MOMENT: NOVEMBER 4th 2008!
——> THE Historic ELECTION <——
"A work in PROGRESS."
Nov. 4th, 2008.
A great American leader once said, "As individual fingers We can be easily broken. But TOGETHER We make a mighty fist." These words too were spoken by a minority leader. He was the venerable Chief Sitting Bull. No, Barack Obama’s not the first American minority to speak eloquently and he most certainly won’t be the last. Though, in the end, this election wasn’t even close !!! The world watched as, "YES WE CAN!" turned into, "YES WE DID!" as it now ushers in, "YES WE MUST!" time is NOW!
What WE do with this moment shall define US, forthright. America has now elected a man with a background of partial African – American descent as President elect. A new leader with roots from Kenya to Kansas (with a step-father from Indonesia), will be working in conjunction with a vice-Presidential of Anglo-European roots. This is something in which citizens of ALL races – both here and the world ’round – have loudly REJOICED. Why talk about race? Is race important? You bet! Because – like it or not – race has dominated and governed Our daily lives for thousands of years. After all: "To know where We’re going, We must first know where We’ve been".
We’ve come a LONG Way baby! What was once "acceptable" in 1965 is no longer in 2008 and THANKFULLY.
This is a changing of the guard. Especially since forty-percent of America’s population is considered to be a "minority". Only four generations removed, the repression of African slaves by Anglo Saxons caused hundreds of thousands of brothers to kill brothers in a viscous and bloody battle that changed the fundamental principals of this Constitutional Republic from rhetoric to reality. This too was a significant changing of the guard.
For the first time in the history of the country, the ancestors of these very same people who so passionately fought for slavery have now OVERWHELMINGLY voted for a minority leader. This too ushers in a new chapter in the history of America. This is a tremendous nod to those great American leaders before Us who risked everything so that We find ourselves at this precise moment in time. We must give thanks to these men and women who both tirelessly and unselfishly gave their lives to cross and to help shatter the racial, sexual and social boundaries imbued in the history of the United States of America.
It has now taken place. There’s a palpable renewed sense of HOPE for a better tomorrow – a HOPE that these same crippling boundaries shall finally once and for all be erased. Yet it is wise to also remember the adage, "Actions speak louder than words" and Our rhetoric must now be turned into action. The ability to truly rise above differences and to not just speak of doing so, tells much of Our long and continuous journey. If We remember the old North American Indian saying, "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." We might just have a fighting chance.
The People have spoken! A record-setting 130 million Americans’ turned out to vote in Tuesday’s election, in which Barack Obama made history on a Democratic tidal wave of victory. Polling suggests voters came out in record numbers because of growing concerns over the economy, jobs, health care, energy, and the war in Iraq.
Clearly, the Obama administration and the new Democratic majority in Washington have a chance to make profound changes in Our lives – stretching from Wall Street to Main Street. Yes, this moment shows decency about human possibility and let’s face it, We could use just a little decency RIGHT NOW.
Perhaps more importantly, this moment speaks volumes as it’s an utter rejection of the right’s politics of fear and greed? It will now be decades before there’s another Republican majority in Congress. Never have the words, "Ask not what Your country can do for You, but what You can do for Your country," seemed more true for SO MANY. For, We-Are-Our-country. And We’re at a MAJOR crossroads. Where, oh where to begin?
OBAMA / BIDEN Campaign.
Here in New York, Working Families voters, members, affiliates, supporters and chapter leaders poured everything they had into critical campaigns that proved successful. Many are now understandably exhausted – though more than a little proud of what was accomplished. And, the results were terrific ~ if not downright Historic. For the first time since the mid-1930, the State Senate will NO LONGER be controlled by Republicans. It’s now in the hands of a Democratic Working Families majority! Just-take-one-moment-and-soak-this-in. MASSIVE Democratic majorities in BOTH the HOUSE and the SENATE!
Together, the W.F.P built a solid partnership with Senate Democrats, knocking on more than half a million doors for progressive CHANGE. And, in the end, "We the People" overwhelmingly responded. This is a MILESTONE. There’s now a renewed sense of real HOPE resonating from Washington, indeed, around the world. This is powerful. Because, without HOPE, there’s simply nothing to gain.
However, We must be careful not to fall prey to disillusionment. If illusions tear People asunder, then disillusion outright kills the human spirit. In other words, divided THEY conquer, united, WE stand. That this historic moment was ushered in during Native American Indian month is apropos. Because, We must not forget the very real foundations of this idealistic country and pay homage to the 500 plus year struggle of Our First Peoples’ for the basic rights afforded them in Our own Constitution. Obama’s victory is indeed a victory representing the multitudes. It is precisely because his success mirrors the masses, rather than a few wealthy, power-elite that this is so electrifying. A VERY palpable, "Finally!" was the expression heard ’round the world.
The world woke up WEDNESDAY with the real possibility of a very RARE OPPORTUNITY – the best in most Our lifetimes. This is a chance to truly transform America.
But, We mustn’t forget the VERY hard realities existing in this country. Just ask any woman…any "person of color"…or, any First Peoples living in this "great" land. For, as long as Native American Indians in Our country still live in policies of containment on reservations without the very basics, such as running water, electricity, or heat… as long as more than 75% of the prison population includes African-Americans, First and Taino Peoples …as long as We continue to allow Our tax dollars spent to be three times more for each of these prisoners per head than on Our own school childrens’ education…as long as American women continue to earn less than men for the SAME work…as long as We allow privately held corporations to exist without extreme MAJOR reform…as long as We continue to allow Our children to trample on foreign soil to kill and to be killed in "Our" names…as long as We sit idly by expecting or content to let others to "Do the right thing," for us… as long as We DON’T ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE TOGETHER in challenging and fighting for OUR OWN WELL-BEING for the betterment of future generations… as long as We choose to remain ignorant and in denial to Our faults…TRUE CHANGE can, and will NEVER HAPPEN.
Though, like anything rare and unique, We must first take proper time to Honor…to give thanks to those before us who, without their dedication and sacrifice, made this moment possible. We must come together. Immediate formulation and a real plan to guard and to protect this moment with fierce determination is required. New leaders are needed and will emerge so We ensure moments like this become the norm, rather than a mere token fluke. If We HOPE to transform Tuesday’s results into a real break from the shipwreck of the most immediate last thirty years – We MUST start by realizing this election represents just that – a START. It’s Round One of Our LONG and CONTINUOUS struggle.
And, Round Two will be just as tough, if not more so. Staying the course can easily be forgotten when People are dying from inadequate health care; when they’ve found themselves on the streets for lack of shelter and as they grow ever more desperate due to lack of job opportunities. Just ask people of Native or African American descent. Or, one of Our homeless veterans living on America’s streets of plenty.
Yes, the house of cards has fallen HARD and FAST. And, President / V.P. elect Barack Obama and Joe Biden have inherited many seemingly insurmountable challenges. REAL CHANGE – not rhetoric – is what’s needed. And to get it, We MUST demand it. We MUST march and be watchdogs for the sake of the coming generations. Communication with Our politicians is a MUST. MOST importantly, We MUST stand TOGETHER and be willing to fight to protect what is right and what is good for the MANY, NOT the FEW.
UNITED We STAND, DIVIDED, We FALL.
A President Obama will need to be simultaneously supported AND pushed. His training as a community organizer gives one confidence that he’ll not only understand, but should also expect this dynamic. It’s imperative for us to mind the trusty, "Follow the money" strategy. Don’t forget, President elect Obama dually made history by raising the most unprecedented amount of campaign dollars in the HISTORY of U.S. Presidential elections. According to CNN, if annualized, the Obama campaign’s ad spending on the post-primary Presidential campaign would come to US0 million. This amount is only exceeded amongst large corporations such as Verizon and AT&T – both heavy sponsors of the Republican AND the Democratic national party conventions.
At the start of October, the Democratic National Committee announced it raised US.9 million with US.5 million sitting in the bank. The party raised money through joint fund-raising events with Obama and was able to use that money to assist his candidacy. These numbers were only possible because he opted out of the public financing system for the fall campaign. John McCain chose to participate in the system, which limited him to US million for the September / October stretch prior to the election. After initially promising to accept public financing if McCain did, Obama changed his mind after setting primary fund-raising records. In fact, by the time the primaries hit, Obama was raising as much as US million each and every day. The Obama / Biden campaign raised more than US0 million in September alone – a stunning and unprecedented eruption of political giving. This extraordinary fund-raising is bound to set a new standard in politics that could doom the current taxpayer-paid system set up in the 1970′s.
HOPEfully NOT.
The party presidential nominees – Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain – together spent more than US BILLION, also an unprecedented figure. According to White House for Sale, a nonpartisan group that tracks political giving, Obama had 605 bundlers, or donors who collect money from friends and associates and bundle them together. Four years ago, Democrat John F. Kerry had 588 bundlers and, in 2000, Al Gore had none. McCain had 851 bundlers working for his campaign, compared to 557 who raised money for the Bush-Cheney re-election committee in 2004. George W. Bush is largely credited with institutionalizing the role of bundlers in 2000, when he recruited a then unprecedented 555 surrogate fundraisers.
Ask Yourselves: Who really benefits most from having donated to the Obama / Biden campaign?
President – elect Barack Obama & John McCain’s U.S. Presidential campaign funds details:
OBAMA:
Total:US0,767,963
Bundlers:605
LobbyistBundlers:17
MCCAIN:
Total: US2,525,058
Bundlers: 851
Lobbyist Bundlers: 77
See the Center for Responsive Politics Presidential campaign monies for a better perspective:
2008: Obama AND McCain – US.3 BILLION
(Obama: US0,767,963 million / McCain: US2,525,058 million)
2004: Bush AND Kerry – US.2 BILLION
2000: Gore AND Bush – US.56 MILLION
1996: Dole AND Clinton – US.82 MILLION
1992: Clinton AND Bush – US.24 MILLION
* TO SEARCH FOR MEGA-DONERS, CLICK here: www.whitehouseforsale.org/searchDonor.cfm?CandidateSelect… McCain&StateSelect=&SortOrder=Last_Name, First_Name, Middle_Name, Suffix.*
Democrats in Washington and will be under enormous pressure to "play it safe", even as everyone knows We need bold action and some kind of new, New Deal. And, if We allow the "play-it-safe" crowd to dominate, then Obama (and We) will not succeed. Make NO mistake: the corporate big-wigs and free-market fundamentalists see this for exactly what it is: THE FIGHT OF A LIFETIME. They want nothing more than for the Democrats to disappoint, because then the HOPEfulness that Obama represents can be stuffed back in the bottle and cynicism can once again regain its place in Our national political culture.
WE Can’t Let This Happen!
Whether it’s revamping our health care system…implementing a new fair-based trade policy…creating a sound, realistic and well thought-out immigration plan…jobs programs…organizing rights in Washington, or campaign election reform, family leave or fair taxes, this election has set the stage for an ENTIRELY NEW social contract between the government and the People. This election opens up a real possibility – small, but real – that We could make genuine progress as a society, in terms of equality and freedom and true sustainability. In other words, the democracy We preach, but don’t teach. What comes next is up to US. And, We need to seriously ready OURSELVES.
In short, the real meaning of this election hasn’t yet been decided.
Overall, there’s a lot of work to do. It’s imperative that EVERYONE do his share – whether this means attending a neighborhood or union meeting, signing a petition, organizing or riding a bus to a demonstration, going on a lobby visit, making a financial contribution, or just talking to a stranger about the need and desirability of the common good.
Thanks for all you do!
Live your values. Love your country.
And, remember: TOGETHER, We can make a D-I-F-F-E-R-E-N-C-E !
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