Gibson won’t let hype affect Diamondbacks

There is plenty of hype surrounding the Arizona
Diamondbacks.

Division winners last year, they improved over the
offseason
and have many picking them not only to repeat as NL West
champs, but reach the World Series, too.

And while positive attention is certainly a welcome change
from what the team had the last few seasons, manager Kirk
Gibson’s job is to make sure it doesn’t get to his team’s
head.

“I pay as much attention to that as I did what [the media]
said about us last year,” he said. “When people don’t
believe in you, you understand that you create your own
identity and you become your own expert and you decide
where you want to go.”

Gibson understands this more than most, he said, when he
went to college as an unheralded high schooler and left as
one of the game’s top prospects.

“I was highly motivated to prove all the ‘All-Americans
and All-Staters,’ we’ll see just how All-American they
were, which I did, by the first game,” Gibson said.

But by the time he got to the Major Leagues, Gibson said
Tigers manager Sparky Anderson was not impressed with with
his player’s collegiate achievements.

“I got sloppy, I got lazy, it got away from me and people
passed me by,” he said of what happened next.

Gibson won’t let that happen to his squad.

Last year most picked the D-backs to finish in the NL
West’s cellar for the third consecutive season, as they
were a team with little starpower and an unproven manager.
All were looking to prove the doubters wrong, which is a
motivation that simply will not exist this season.

That’s why good or bad, Gibson says his team cannot spend
time focusing on what others are saying about them. After
all, games are not won in the press — they’re won on the
field.

“What people say about us will not get us anything,”
Gibson said.

Arizona Sports’ Kyndra de St. Aubin contributed to this
report

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