D-Backs Announce Champs’ 10-year Reunion

2001 World Series winners will come back to desert Sept. 9-11

By Steve Gilbert / MLB.com | 02/11/11 12:29 PM EST

PHOENIX — The Arizona Diamondbacks will turn back the clock Sept. 9-11 when they officially celebrate the 10th anniversary of the club’s World Series championship with the “2001 World Championship Reunion Weekend.”

The weekend will begin with the D-backs wearing throwback jerseys for the Sept. 9 game against the Padres. The club will wear the traditional home white top with purple pinstripes and the “A” logo. That was one of the uniform tops the club wore from 1998 through 2006, when its color scheme was purple, turquoise, copper and black. In 2007, the team switched to its current color scheme of sedona red, sonoran sand and black.

“The players on the 2001 team will always be remembered by D-backs fans for our proudest achievement,” D-backs team president and CEO Derrick Hall said. “So we want to make sure we have as many of them return to Chase Field in September to recreate those special memories.”

The Diamondbacks celebrated after winning Game 7 of the World Series over the Yankees on Nov. 4, 2001. (Matt York/AP)

Members of the 2001 team will be in attendance and will be recognized during a pregame ceremony Sept. 10. The players will also be celebrated during the game as the organization relives an inning-by-inning recap of the club’s Game 7 win over the New York Yankees.

The team said it will announce which players from the 2001 team will be in attendance at a later date.

The first 15,000 fans entering the ballpark on Sept. 10 will receive a 2001 World Championship Replica Ring, courtesy of Chase.

“I can’t believe it has been 10 years since our magical season in 2001 that created so many thrilling memories for D-backs fans throughout Arizona,” said Luis Gonzalez, who currently serves the D-backs as a special assistant to the president and CEO. “I am looking forward to seeing my former teammates and reliving the many memories from the 2001 World Series with our fans in September.”

To close out the weekend, the D-backs will honor first responders in remembrance of the many Americans who lost their lives in the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

D-backs fans can purchase tickets to the “2001 World Championship Reunion Weekend” beginning Saturday, when D-backs 10-Pack ticket packages go on sale at SUBWAY D-backs FanFest, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. MST at Chase Field.

The D-backs’ 10-Pack packages include 10 flex tickets to 2011 regular-season games, $10 in D-bucks and a free MLB All-Star FanFest ticket. The ticket packages can also be purchased by calling (602) 514-8400.

Steve Gilbert is a reporter for MLB.com. Read his blog, Inside the D-backs, and follow him on Twitter @dbackswriter. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs. 

Catch up with Eric Violette, ‘The FreeCreditReport.com’ Guy

The ‘FreeCreditReport.com Guy’ is actually Eric Violette, a native of Quebec who currently lives near Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  He is a trained musician and actor who has his own band God Against God.   

 

Check out Eric Violette’s music at MySpace!

Follow Eric Violette on Twitter; on FaceBook; and on his Official MySpace page.

Follow God Against God on MySpace, and on Band Camp.

 

An Open Message to fans of ‘Criminal Minds’

To Fans of ‘Criminal Minds’:

I am writing this blog as a way to vent some of my frustration over the current situation with the television show Criminal Minds.  I am frustrated and upset, and I can guarantee at the start this blog is probably not going to be my best work.  However, I am going to go ahead with it anyway.

As any fan who doesn’t live under a rock or on Mars or someplace now undoubtedly knows, an announcement has been made that the contract of AJ Cook, who plays Jennifer Jareau on the show, will not be renewed.  It has also been announced that Paget Brewster as Emily Prentiss will be back on the show on a limited basis and that a new female character will be introduced on the show next season.   

Naturally, no one associated with the show is happy about this situation.  Certainly none of the fans are happy.  One person I know on the Fan Forums at CBS.com said out of more than a thousand comments she had read only three were in favor of the cast moves.  What has been frustrating about this whole situation is the tack some so-called fans have taken since these cast changes were announced. 

While some people, myself included, tried to be the voice of reason and suggest fans should write calm, well thought out emails or letters; there were a few fans who blatantly suggested fans should flood CBS executives and random employees with spam and hate mail.  I say ‘random employees’ because one of the email addresses one of these so-called ‘fans’ suggested we write to is that of an assistant to the Vice President of a department at CBS who likely had no connection to this decision and no power to affect it in any way.  This same ‘fan’ also published the CBS phone number and suggested fans should call the number and leave hateful voice messages.  She even provided country codes and other information so fans could call from the United Kingdom and other parts of Europe to do the same.  This is ridiculous, stupid and makes the fans of one of the most intelligent shows on television look completely ridiculous.  I sincerely hope that few fans took part in this campaign to encourage hate mail and spam; however I am virtually certain that some did.      

One of the most bothersome aspects of this whole mess is how some fans of JJ and EP have decided to berate other characters.  Some of these ‘fans’ have decided it’s appropriate to trash the other characters to save their own favorite.  I have seen posts suggesting other characters were better gotten rid of than their favorite character.  The ‘barrage of keep my favorite character and get rid of this other character instead’ as one fan put it, is disgusting and divisive.  Most of us who know about this business in the first place learned it from fans of characters other than JJ and EP.  My favorite character on Criminal Minds is Spencer Reid, played brilliantly by Matthew Gray Gubler. I learned of the contract situation from other Spencer Reid fans, and then from Rossi and Garcia fans. It is now hurtful and unfair to fans of other characters like me to be treated like this.  It’s painful to hear from so-called ‘fans’ that your character is more worthy of being dropped from the show and to hear wonderful characters like Penelope Garcia, who is portrayed by a wonderful actress named Kirsten Vangness, be called names by a group of morons who call themselves fans of Criminal Minds, but yet claim they would rather see the show ‘crash and burn’ without their favorite character or think it’s appropriate to berate the other characters. 

Another thing I learned about later was that some ‘fans’ were criticizing Shemar Moore (Derek Morgan on the show) for not speaking out enough in support of AJ Cook and Paget Brewster.  As some fans on CBS.com tried to point out, Shemar doesn’t even have Twitter and doesn’t use the social networking sites.  What was he supposed to do, take a billboard out on Hollywood Boulevard?  It’s not fair to critique the other actors for their responses to this situation.  Each of them is handling it in their own way, and that is as it should be.  It’s not fair to expect the other actors to behave in a way that some of these fans are behaving.  The best way for the other actors to handle this situation is privately, behind the scenes with the CBS executives in their own negotiations and talks.

I was too distracted by other things to accomplish what I really wanted to accomplish with this blog.  Therefore, I will stop here.  Following are snail mail and email addresses, plus a phone number.  Use them if you want to, or hope to affect change.  Unfortunately I think there have been enough rogue spam and hate mail postings to all these to bury the intelligent, well thought out and well-spoken responses that might make a difference.  However, it never hurts to try, does it? 

http://www.cbs.com/info/user_services/fb_global_form.php  Feedback Form

CBS Television Network                                                                                                                                                 

51 West 52nd Street                                                                                                                                                     

New York, NY 10019

Main Number: (212) 975-4321

 

CRIMINAL MINDS                                                                                                                                            

Touchstone Television in assoc. w/ Paramount Network Television                                                                           

8660 Hayden Place                                                                                                                                                   

Culver City, CA 90232

 

http://www.cbspressexpress.com/div.php/cbs_entertainment/contact-list 

This is a list of email addresses for some executives at CBS.  I’m not even sure if any of these people have any connection to what has happened with AJ Cook and Paget Brewster.  However, this is the list where the rogue person I mentioned above found her email contacts.