At the Arizona Diamondbacks Fan Fest, 10 singers competed for the chance to sing the national anthem before a Diamondbacks home game. The first nine were women; the last one is the PA announcer at Chase Field.

Circled in red is the day pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training in Arizona. Today, we ventured over to Scottsdale Stadium to see the Giants 2007 hurlers in their tune-up sessions. Of course, our #1 mission was to see Barry Zito. As this clip shows, we were not disappointed. The position players reports next week--we'll be back (as well as to other Major League camps in the area).

We have a new rising star we'll be rooting for in future seasons--Tampa Bay prospect Fernando Perez. I saw Perez talk to a young boy at our first AFL game this season, and his manner and respect for the fans stood out from his peers. Today, after the championship game ended, Perez's interaction with young fans earned our respect and admiration.

Perez, a 23-year-old center fielder for the Devil Rays, certainly has his work cut out for him with such talent as Delmon Young and Carl Crawford standing in his path. Nonetheless, Perez plays with flair in the outfield, and his running catch of a blast over his head ended the game with a touch of the dramatic. The young man, who played at Visalia in the California League this past season, is from Elizabeth, NJ and attended Columbia University (no small feat in its own right). At Visalia, he batted .307 with 33 stolen bases and close to a .400 on base percentage. He was a seventh round pick in 2004 an we hope he's headed for big things. He's a class act all the way.

In this clip, he's being interview by a reporter from MLB.com

And so our memorable baseball season comes to an end. The Phoenix Desert Dogs beat the Grand Canyon Rafters 6-2 ending the 15th Arizona Fall League season in fine form. A relatively smaller than usual crowd for the championship game (this was our third in a row) saw a few innings of shutout pitching before two costly errors put The Dogs ahead to stay. An 8th inning home run by Detroit Tigers prospect Brent Clevlen capped the victory which was saved by Blue Jays young closer-to-be, Tracy Thorpe (all 6-4, 250 of him).

We are sad to see the season come to an end.It was a season that included the World Baseball Classic, Cactus League, major league games, the All-Star Game in Pittsburgh, Fall League, the Fall League All-Star Game and now the title game. We loved every inning of every game and can't wait til 2007.

Celebrating 15 years as quiet but powerful force in Major League Baseball, the Arizona Fall League commemorating its anniversary with a mid-season All-Star Game, featuring the best players in the league, many of whom are top draft picks destined for stardom. I read somewhere that nearly half of the players in this year's World Series were former AFL stand outs. That speaks volumes.

The game featured a rematch between the Mets Mike Pelfrey and the Phillies Gio Gonzalez. The spotlight in this clip is on three other players: Hunter Pence of the Astros who is one of the best young players I have seen in a while (he can hit, hit with power, field and throw), Dewon Day of the White Sox (his proud mom and dad gave us free tickets before the game) and Scott Tyler of the Marlins. We learned about Tyler, a Philadelphia-area kid, from his proud father who sat behind us. His dad, Toby Tyler, is a former ABA player who flew to Arizona to see his son (a second round pick) show his stuff.

The West team lost 3-1, and the sad note here is that the losing pitcher, Devin Perrin, is a Phoenix area guy with a huge cheering section of friends and family.

It was a long-anticipated videoblogging event: The Duck Derby at Kiwanis Park in Tempe. And sure it was hot (101) and the race was slow (40 minutes), but the cause (Make A Wish) is a great one, and we had 15 rubber duckies in the race. The winner (which we weren’t) received a new Chevy and even the runner-ups prizes (which we also didn’t win) were good, ranging from airline tickets to an overnight at Casino Arizona.

Big kudos to Mark Lewis, a local TV personality who was the emcee and kept everyone entertained in the blazing sun with some funny banter.

He won’t be on our flight to Pittsburgh, but Arizona Diamondbacks right-hander Brandon Webb will be joining us in the Steel City for the upcoming All-Star Game. Webb is, without question, one of the best if not best right-handers in the National League. He has nine wins (he slumped a bit after winning his first eight), and has a 2.72 ERA as of this writing. He does lead the league in number of innings thrown (132.1) which is both good and bad; good in that he pitches well into the game, but bad if it causes him to run out of steam later in year.

Webb will have at least two fans at PNC Park. Maybe he’ll be the one to calm down those hot AL bats.

Who on earth would have thunk it? The USA team took a beating from Canada, losing 8-6, and the came actually wasn’t that close. The USA team scored all of its runs in one inning, four of them coming on a Jason Varitek grand slam. Canada came out and pummeled the US pitching, sending Dontrelle Willis and Al Leiter to the showers. It took Huston Street to stop the bleeding and put up the first scoreless inning to give the US squad a chance to get back into the game. The US team came within a whisker of winning in the 8th when Chase Utley faced Phillies teammate Scott Mathieson with two men on and launched a rocket to dead center which fell a few feet short of winning the game. The loss gives Canada an automatic next round invite and puts the US and Mexico both a 1-2. Mexico plays Canada today and the US can lick its wounds one full day before playing South Africa on Friday in a must annihilate game. If Mexico beats Canada, all sorts of odd tiebreaker rules go into effect. Stay tuned.

We were fortunate enough to attend opening night in March, 1992 of the then-redone Scottsdale Stadium. It was one of the smaller HOK projects, but the stadium looked cool as we watched the Giants play the A’s. Today, 13 years later, we toured Scottsdale Stadium as a new facelift had been completed.

The Giants made noises about leaving Scottsdale as a Spring Training facility and heading out to some new Arizona spot such as Goodyear. Scottsdale responded by upgrading the stadium and surrounding practice facilities. Did the city do a good job? Judge for yourself.

In my year-plus of videoblogging, my best coup is the footage in this clip--the Chinese national baseball team as they prepare for the World Baseball Classic. The team is very quietly training in Scottsdale under the tutelage of Jim Lefevbre, former LA Dodgers player and ex-manager of the Mariners, Cubs and Brewers. Lefevbre will manage the Chinese national team in the WBC; a team from Taiwan also will be represented in the classic. The teams from the Asian region will play their first round in Tokyo.

This is the first of a long series of World Baseball Classic reports, running through the finals in San Diego. The teams from South Africa, Mexico and USA will train in Scottsdale; the fourth team in the Arizona region, Canada, will train in Florida (they are being hosted by the Toronto Blue Jays) before heading here the first week of March for games at Scottsdale Stadium and Chase Field.

The most humorous thing about this clip is that my producer and I had to walk across an active driving range to get to the practice field. Luckily, John Daly was not on the range at the time.

A second (and slightly shorter) clip of the Arziona Great Dane Drill team. Words cannot do it justice.

 

Yes, this is (according to the Chinese New Year) “The Year of the Dog.” The commemorate the celebration, we went to The Power Paws Assistance Dogs fund-raiser at Tempe Town Lake. The highlight--I mean the real highlight--had to be the Arizona Great Dane Drill Team. No need to imagine what it’s like to see the giant, regal animals move in unison (a form of obedience training), just take a look. In fact, this is one of two clips.

 

 

One of our favorite Phoenix haunts, Luby’s, is out of our life. The Luby’s, located in Paradise Valley Mall, closed, leaving the area with one cafeteria, that being WAY OUT on Bell Avenue on the way to Surprise Stadium. Some folks think Luby’s is a restaurant for seniors, but it has great, fresh food with a wide selection. I think, as I said in the clip, it makes me doubly sad as it’s a place we used to go with my father when he lived in the area. Guess, it’s one more reason to visit Texas--Luby’s stronghold (as well as corporate headquarters).

 

 

Sunday the 15^th of January is the annual P.F. Change Rock’N’Roll Marathon here in Phoenix. We went down to the pre-race event, a health & fitness expo at the Phoenix City Plaza to nose around, see runners pick up their packets and patrol the booths.

As you might expect, there were lots of freebies, lots of freeloaders (admission was free). Of note, we spoke to “Gina,” who is an on-air spokesperson for Channel 45, the local UPN station. Gina also is a Phoenix Suns cheerleader. Also, we met Dave Newman who created the official race poster (we entered a raffle to win the original).

 

 

As is the custom, Arizona kicks off the New Year with the Jan. 2^nd Fiesta Bowl. It’s a pretty big deal in the Phoenix area as it brings in lots of money and tourists to the area, specially given that it’s about 50 degrees warmer here than it is elsewhere in the continental U.S.

This year, it’s Ohio State vs. Notre Dame, and we went to both school’s local hotel headquarters in search of…well, I am not sure what we were in search of. We didn’t see any famous alums (Regis, Jack Nicklaus, Bobby Knight, etc…) but saw some of the Notre Dame players (my wife says she saw Brady Quinn) and lots of fans escaping the cold.

This is the last year the Fiesta Bowl will be held at ASU’s Sun Devil Stadium; beginning next season, the game moves out to Glendale at the Cardinals new facility.

After a year and a half of waiting, we finally got to the Barrio Café for dinner. It has been voted the best Mexican restaurant in Phoenix, and indeed it’s worthy of the honor. Here’s one of the restaurant’s great charms—tableside preparation of guacamole.

 

Yes, I know my camera is low-light challenged. I am working on that….

 

 

Note:

After eight months of videoblogging, I have decided to duplicate my videos on a site dedicated to videoblogging—What’s On Tonight: The Videoblog. I have tried to embed the videos on this site, but (as much as I love Blogware) it appears semi-impossible. The embedded player is crucial because my MPEG-4 videos are challenging for many people to see.

If there’s a funky dog event being held anywhere within driving distance of our home, it looks like we’re there. Today, we went to the second annual Reindoggie Parade in downtown Scottsdale. Dogs and their owners from all over the area, dressed in their best holiday costumes, came to the Hilton Village parking lot to compete. I think the winners in the various categories got some sort of trophy (presented by Scottsdale Mayor Mary Manross), but we didn’t stick around for that.

 

 

Players saying goodbye and acting very gracious to the fans who wait as they make their way from Phoenix Muni Stadium to the team bus.

 

On a sunny Saturday, we made it to the Arizona Fall League championship for the second consecutive year. Oddly, it was the same two teams as last year—Scorpions and Desert Dogs, although the players and MLB teams who made up the squads, were different. The results were the same as the Desert Dogs were the winners, this time 9-3.

 

Matt Kemp of the Dodgers was the star of the game with two home runs and Jamie Shields of the D-rays pitched seven strong innings for the win. Casey Daigle—with celeb wife Jenny Finch cheering him on—came on to pitch the ninth inning. It was a sloppy game with five errors between the two teams, a few of the errors leading to big rallies for the Dogs.

 

The game was as much about who was there as who played. In this clip, you will find Davey Johnson, former Mets manager, Braves second baseman as well as manager of Team USA Baseball, the Olympic team; the Big Bopper, Bob Watson, (former Astros star now MLB and Team USA exec) and Angels owner Arte Moreno. We saw but did not capture on video former Cardinals/A’s/Cleveland outfielder Georeg Henrdick, former White Sox exec Rollie Hemond and the father & son Garagiolas, Joe and Joe Jr.

 

Thus ends another season of Arizona Fall league. Who from this crop will vie for Rookie of the Year in ’06? Stay tuned!

 

After last year’s posting of pictures from the Dock Dogs event at Westworld here in Scottsdale, I was psyched to come back in 2005 at shoot video. So, on Veterans Day, we made our way to the U.S. Dog Agility Association event in which the amazing diving dogs were featured.

 

It’s a long clip, but it’s worth all six-plus minutes. The star of the show is Gabe, a flying Border Collie who is owned by and trained by Todd Bobula of Dayon, Nevada. I spoke to Todd for a minute after the event and the bond between man and dog was remarkable. The announcer said (and he might have been joking) that Gabe delivers invoices to customers’ doors for Todd as part of his business. I would not be surprised. The other star of the day is actually Gabe’s son, Bolt, who flies just like his dad. Another member of the Bobula clan handles Bolt.

 

Today was the second day of heats (or waves, as they call them) with the finals on Sunday afternoon.

 

Tonight, Rawhide, the “wild west town” in N. Scottsdale, a mile or so from my house, is closing. The last night. Tomorrow, sayonara. Of course, Rawhide would end its 30+ year run on Halloween.

 

Here’s a short clip of Rawhide’s signature statue, “Come and Get It” which sits out front on Scottsdale Road. The rest of Rawhide is headed to the Gila River Indian Community, but the statue is headed for eBay. Really.

 

Three or four lifetimes ago, my wife and I worked one night at Rawhide as temp workers (we didn’t have a proverbial pot to p*** in and would do anything for a buck). Actually, the gig got cancelled and we were sent off to Troon to be a bartender and waitress. For those who know me. The concept of me as a bartender is somewhat hilarious. Anyway, fireworks start shortly and then it’s one more tourist attraction down the tubes and one more shopping center springing from the earth.

 

My annual Fall League birthday baseball game was a day late, but full of excitement nonetheless. It was the Surprise (nee Scottsdale) Scorpions at the Peoria Saguaros. First viewing of the Scorpions this year, and it’s a team filled with talent: Brandon Wood, Kendry Morales, Michael Bourn, Jared Weaver, etc..

 

This clip provides an overview of the game and then some up-close shots of a few players, most notable Alex Gordon (No. 2 pick in the most recent draft) and Brandon Wood (he of 43 minor league homers this past season), a graduate of Horizon High School in Phoenix (and former top draft pick of the Angels). By the way, if you want to get a glimpse at a future Cy Young candidate, look at Jared Weaver (also of the Angels). He was a No. 1 pick who held out an entire season before signing. He is the real deal with major heat plus a wicked, major league curve.

 

 

Looks like I have a new neighbor. It makes sense for Google to open an Arizona office for a number of reasons, but I’ll spare you the Chamber of Commerce rap. For me, it’s a signal that Google is moving into the payments business. Amex, Discover and many others have their payment headquarters here because space is (relatively) cheap; the cost of living is (relatively) low. There are an increasing number of skilled workers moving here and it good for us to expand our employment base beyond the service industry.

 

Spoken like someone running for Congress in a few years?