Posts Tagged ‘Justin Upton’
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Offensively challenged? Not these guysApril 17th, 2008
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Last season, the Diamondbacks scored 712 runs, only to give up 732.
If you’re an avid reader of baseball writers (and if you’ve tuned in here, you probably are), that fact was plastered all over every prediction, overview and wrap-up of the 2007 team. Solid defensively, a decent pitching staff, and next to no punch in the lineup. They were the poster boys of parity last season. Read more
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Diamondbacks, MLB do right by JackieApril 16th, 2008
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Last year was my first in the state of Arizona, and as part of my getting acclimated to my new surroundings, I made it a point to take in everything the Arizona Diamondbacks were about. As luck would have it, my first game was a Sunday afternoon match-up with the Colorado Rockies on April 15.
A few days before that, it was announced that April 15 would be a celebration of Jackie Robinson and the 60th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier. The Reds’ Ken Griffey Jr. petitioned baseball for the privilege of wearing Jackie’s no. 42, and soon the idea snowballed, with dozens of players asking for the right to wear Jackie’s number on their back, putting their own name and number in the laundry room for a day.
The experiment was a success, and on Tuesday, five Diamondbacks chose to again wear the only number retired by all of baseball, and the first such number to be honored by any North American professional league. Orlando Hudson, Justin Upton, Chris Young, Eric Byrnes and first base coach Lee Tinsley all donned the 42 on their Sedona red jerseys against the Giants yesterday. All but Upton (who was in the minors at the time) did the same last April 15. Byrnes had a special affinity for 42. Byrnes was one of the only caucasian players in baseball to wear the number last season (excluding players whose teams chose to collectively wear 42). His affection for Robinson and his plight was illustrated by the fact that Byrnes wrote his senior thesis on the man during his days at UCLA.