Dose of Venom: Arizona Diamondbacks’ first game back brings freshness, win over ASU Sun Devils
Mar 4, 2015, 2:28 AM | Updated: 6:22 am
SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — After a troubled 2014 campaign and a front office overhaul, the Arizona Diamondbacks began their 2015 spring training season with a 4-0 win over Arizona State University on Tuesday.
On a crisp spring day, not 12 hours removed from a thorough cleansing of rain, newness permeated the air at Talking Stick Fields: from the manicured lawn clipped that morning to the faces that warmed up on it before the game’s start.
And who could be a more fitting usher to a fresh start than Cory Hahn? He knows a little something about new beginnings.
Hahn now works as a scout for the D-backs and is a former Sun Devil — and a storied one, at that. His journey from a lauded freshman player who was paralyzed from the chest down in his opening game with ASU to inspiration and a D-backs draft pick is one that is well known by fans of either organization.
He threw out the first pitch of the game to his former Arizona State teammate Trever Allen in a touching collision of the two programs, both collegiate and professional.
It wasn’t the only “first” of the game, either.
The matchup between the Sun Devils and D-backs was the inaugural of its kind between the teams, and Diamondbacks manager Chip Hale met ASU skipper Tracy Smith for the first time ever before the game.
