Between 1940 and 1990, Phoenix had advanced from being the country's 99th to its 9th largest city.  This, and the long-time presence of successful AAA minor league ball clubs (not to mention AA clubs in  Tucson) made it almost inevitable that MLB would eventually come to the Arizona desert.  In 1995, Phoenix Suns' owner Jerry Colangelo was awarded one of two expansion franchises set to begin play in 1998 (the other being Tampa Bay).  

 

The club hired former Yankee manager Buck Showalter a full two years before opening day and in a naming contest, Diamondbacks won out over entries including Scorpions, Rattlers and Coyotes.    

 

The Diamondbacks were successful from the beginning.  They won 100 games in just their second year, and by 2001 grabbed the NL pennant and won a thrilling World Series in walk-off fashion against the 3-time defending champion Yankees (winning the Series in just their 4th season broke the recently-established mark set by the Marlins who won it all in just their 5th season in 1997).  After the success of their first half-decade, they settled into a pattern marked by mediocrity with brief spurts of competitiveness, until winning their second pennant in 2023.         

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The main purpose of this page is to illustrate those players, managers and coaches who have been the most prominent in the franchise's history.  Links below will take you to galleries highlighting each, by position.  Generally, an individual is included if he spent at least 2 full seasons (consecutive or cumulative) as a starter, relief pitcher, closer or manager. For coaches, I've generally used 5 years of service as the bar.  None of this is scientific, though, so there are exceptions.  Where possible and practical, I used pictures of actual baseball cards because that it is the medium through which I, and I suppose many others, first discovered the game. Where necessary, I designed my own images.  Images of actual baseball cards were obtained at the Card Cyber Museum, and for my own designs I used photos found at host of different sites, but none moreso than the wonderful forum at Out of the Park Developments.  

 

I claim no rights to, or ownership of, any of the photographic images I've used on these pages.   You are welcome to use them yourself.  All I ask is that that if you use any of my personal creations, you give credit to this site.