Franchise History
Baseball had a rich tradition in Arizona long before talk of bringing a big-league team even started. The state has been a frequent spring training site since 1946. With a large number of people relocating to the state from the Midwest and the Northeast, as well as from California, many teams (most notably the Chicago Cubs, Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees, New York Mets, and the Los Angeles Dodgers) have normally had large followings in Arizona.
On March 9, 1995, Arizona was awarded a franchise to begin play for the 1998 season. A $130 million franchise fee was paid to Major League Baseball and on January 16, 1997, the Diamondbacks were officially voted into the National League.
Since their debut, the Diamondbacks have won 5 National League West titles, 1 National League Championship pennant and the 2001 World Series.
Read more about this topic: Arizona Diamondbacks
Famous quotes containing the words franchise and/or history:
“To-day women constitute the only class of sane people excluded from the franchise ...”
—Mary Putnam Jacobi (1842–1906)
“To care for the quarrels of the past, to identify oneself passionately with a cause that became, politically speaking, a losing cause with the birth of the modern world, is to experience a kind of straining against reality, a rebellious nonconformity that, again, is rare in America, where children are instructed in the virtues of the system they live under, as though history had achieved a happy ending in American civics.”
—Mary McCarthy (1912–1989)