The Team Without A Heart, Has Broken Mine.
October 3, 2006  Comment

They finally did it. I have been teetering on coming back to baseball. As an avid fan before the strike and a casual one since, I spent this year in a sort of in between mode. Afraid to completely give in again to my baseball jones. 

I still watched the Diamondbacks over the last several years, they were the local team and there were good stories to be told. I found myself being drawn more and more into my childhood game again as time passed and like all wounds my strike broken heart had begun to mend and was just almost complete again. 

Then like a bolt from a past of broken dreams the team I was growing to love decided it didn’t have a heart anymore.

Managing partner Jeff Moorad and Ken Kendrick informed Luis Gonzalez over breakfast one day that that they would not be having Gonzo back. He had a ten million dollar team option for next year, and yes, that would be too much at this point in his career, but this was not about money as Gonzo had stated publicly he would resign for less here than anywhere else. Though Gonzalez had held out hope that a new deal could be reached, team officials said they declined to open negotiations. You read that right, they declined to even discuss it.

Gonzalez produced the most memorable moment in the nine-year-old team’s history — a bloop single off New York Yankees closer Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of Game 7 that drove in the winning run in the 2001 World Series. It remains the state’s only major sports championship.

But before Gonzo came to Arizona, he was valued less than Karim Garcia, a 23-year-old outfielder with a penchant for breaking balls in the dirt, and Gonzalez was told by his previous employer he was no better than a part-time player.

Then he came to Arizona and became not just the best player the Diamondbacks had ever seen, and not just the face of the team, but the face of the Diamondbacks and for many the face of Arizona.

Everywhere you turn there is a story about the wonderful things Gonzo did for his community. We are talking about the man who won the Pat Tillman award for community service, The Branch Rickey award from baseball for community service, the man who took the clubhouse guys off to San Diego as a thank you once he found out he was leaving.

What he does when no fans are cheering and few are watching is his true and lasting contribution.

This is a player who absolutely defined a team and a town who was summarily dismissed and no one really can understand the reason why.

Yes, there is a youth movement in Arizona, but you cannot build a team completely on youth. You must have clubhouse leaders and fan favorites. Without them you become just another entertainment option in competition with movies, dining out, and more. You can’t destroy the relationships that fans have with the team and succeed.

Gonzo now badly wants to sign with an NFC west team, he has too much class to say it, but he would love to extract some revenge on the businessmen who decided to sever his relationship with the fans who loved him and he loved in return.

Count me as one who hopes he does so I can continue to root for him, I am no longer a Diamondbacks fan, but I will always be a Luis Gonzalez fan.