Wednesday, April 1, 1998 | 9:02 a.m.
PHOENIX -- Play Ball! Never before had those words sent shivers down a Phoenix native's spine the way they did Tuesday night.
I've stretched out in Wrigley Field on a warm summer day, bundled up in Yankee Stadium on a rainy winter night and looked up at the roof of the Astrodome, wondering what the weather might be outside.
From major league playoff games to regular season single-A contests, from NCAA regionals to high school state championships, baseball always has been a constant.
But nothing that has come before or anything that will follow can measure up to the Arizona Diamondbacks' franchise opener against visiting Colorado.
The final score? Who cares? The starting pitchers? Unimportant. All that matters to a Phoenix fan is that after a lifetime of waiting, the city has joined the major leagues.
Not that Phoenix has been without professional sports. The Suns have been here nearly as long as a Sun City resident, the Cardinals for a full decade. Even the NHL has managed to find its way into the desert in the form of the Coyotes.
But this is different. This is baseball. The only sport with 100 years of history. The only sport that could keep a lot of old-time fans -- and even some younger ones -- coming back.
Phoenix fans spend every March renewing a baseball ritual -- the Cactus League rolls into town, giving everybody here a taste of the best the sport has to offer.
Yet as much as the city appreciates watching guys with No. 84 on their back field fungoes, hardcore fans -- especially ones who were born here -- never fully embraced spring training the way the snowbirds who follow the Cubs or Giants seem to. It's hard to throw full support behind a team with another town's name on it.
The Phoenix Firebirds -- the area's longtime Triple-A affiliate -- offered another chance for Phoenix to get a heavy dose fill of the National Pastime, but the Pacific Coast League ... well, one can only be entertained by 14-12 games for so long. Besides, it's hard to watch a player develop in your backyard, only to see him achieve stardom in somebody else's.
On Tuesday night, all those frustrations came to a glorious end at the not-so-gloriously-named Bank One Ballpark -- another concession to corporate America, to be sure. But if that's what it took to get a team here, so be it.
The pre-game show was akin to a Super Bowl halftime extravaganza, bordering on embarrassing with its overuse of dancing children and heavy reliance on fireworks and streamers.
The ballpark also had its flaws, from a sometimes malfunctioning scoreboard to a seemingly drunk organ player who wreaked havoc with the most sacred of baseball ditties.
And the game itself came nowhere near living up to the hype, with the Rockies blasting their way to an easy 9-2 victory over a team that appears destined for a typically poor first expansion season.
But none of that mattered to most in attendance. When Andy Benes threw the game's first pitch, it became official.
Play ball! In this city, on this night, they seemed to be the most marvelous words in the English language.
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