“I can’t believe it’s 25 years.” Those are the words which open the MLB Network documentary on the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks and rarely has a truer sentence been spoken. In life, baseball and the world at large, so much has happened since then. I had only just arrived in the state of Arizona the previous November and so was looking forward to experience my first baseball season in person. Since they’d started, I’d been supporting the team from afar in London, with all the difficulties that entailed
– not least, the eight-hour time difference, and only very occasional games being broadcast [Kids these days won’t understand how difficult it was before MLB.tv!]
That said, I’m not sure I was paying enormous attention before the post-season. The SnakePit was still not even a kernel of thought, and I had plenty of other things to occupy my attention e.g. free soda refills, driving on the other side of the road, suddenly having two children, etc. I do recall getting the worst sunstroke I’ve ever had, attending a cloudy spring training game at Scottsdale Stadium that March. This pale-skinned Brit was clearly not prepared for Arizona. Given those distractions, one thing I particularly appreciated about this documentary, is that it doesn’t just focus on the World Series. Every frame of that, in particular Game 7, is indelibly etched on my memory already. But this spends the first half-hour looking at how the team got there.
Clubhouse chemistry is often derided, I suspect mostly because it can’t be measured. However, this film shows how it was present, in copious amounts, in the 2001 D-backs clubhouse – and despite the disparate personalities there. Most obviously, the exact opposites of Curt Schilling and Randy Johnson becoming “Starters 1A and 1B”, pushing each other to career heights. But also, the “mayor”, Luis Gonzalez (a.k.a. Foty, or Father of the Year, after his triplets!) keeping everyone loose, and Tony Womack providing an emotional heart to the team, with his Father’s Day grand-slam, not long after his own father passed away. Hard not to conclude this was indeed the “ride or die” group Gonzo mentions.
Another key move, perhaps one which gets a little lost in the shuffle, was the replacement of Buck Showalter with Bob Brenly. His looser management style seemed to resonate better with a team of experienced players, who did not need micromanagement. Nothing illustrates this better than Brenly’s first team meeting: “I searched around that morning and tried to find the biggest, heaviest notebook… I sat up in front of the guys and said, ‘This was last year’s rule book” and I dropped it in the trash can.“ He then took out a napkin on which he had written this year’s demands. ”Be on time, and bust your ass. Those are my two rules”, according to Mark Grace.
The success came about in sharp contrast to the ways this year’s World Series teams built their rosters. Jerry Colangelo basically spent his way to the World Series, mortgaging the future to do so: 17 players on the 2001 roster had some portion of their salaries deferred. That bought an awful lot of veteran presence. By the time Arizona reached that Game 7, every starter was aged 31 or more, with Craig Counsell the “baby” of the bunch. The average age of 33.7 years remains the oldest starting line-up in World Series history. It is worth remembering, despite the spending, the 2001 D-backs won “only” 92 games. Five franchises had more victories, including the 116-game winning Mariners.
But, as we’ve seen so often before, everyone starts the post-season 0-0. Both the D-backs and the Yankees had similar routes to the Fall Classic. Each squeaked through a Division Series which went all the way, before having a surprisingly easy Championship Series win in five games. In the winner-take-all contest to decide the NLDS, we had Womack failing to get down a bunt on a suicide squeeze with the scores tied in the bottom of the ninth, and four pitches later, smacking a walk-off, playoff series winning single. Arizona then rolled over Atlanta. The Braves actually had a lower ERA in the series, but were undone by six unearned runs in Game 4, and two more in the 3-2 Game 5 win for the D-backs.
That brought us to the World Series, which I need hardly bother describing. Anyone who remembers it will already know the details. However, I liked how this documentary combined interviews with the players now, and archive footage. 25 years of distance sometimes gives room for clarity and honesty. Witness, for example, a frank discussion about Andy Pettitte tipping his pitches in Game 6. One thing missing, which I would have loved to have heard, is Byung-Hyun Kim’s thoughts after the double-whammy of blowing saves in Game 4 + 5 [the latter remains the only sporting event ever to make me feel physically ill]. We get second-hand sympathy, but Kim himself is curiously absent.
Then there’s Game 7, which I would say deserves the ‘Absolute Cinema’ label more than any other game in baseball history. I may be a little biased. But the final two frames alone have so much drama. Alfonso Soriano golfing a pitch out for an eighth-inning Yankees’ lead. Randy Johnson coming out of the bullpen [No mention of the one pitch thrown by Miguel Batista!]. Mariano Rivera getting three K’s in the eighth, before becoming mortal in the ninth. Every time I watch it, I swear we’re going to lose. But every time, as we don’t, I get genuinely emotional – again, uniquely. Though that may be connected to me proposing to the then-future Mrs. SnakePit immediately after Gonzo’s bloop dropped in.
I can not possibly offer any neutral opinion on this as a documentary. It could be potato-grade quality, edited with a weed-whacker and offer no new insights, and it would still be unmissable for any fan of the D-backs. In reality, it is none of those things, and consequently provides what is likely as near-definitive an account of the season as we will ever get. Recommended for anyone, except probably Yankees fans.
Destined: The 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks screens at 5 pm [AZ time] tonight on the MLB network, and will then be repeated at 8:30 p.m.
