Editing Jerry Colangelo (section)

===Baseball===
While in [[Chicago]] for a Suns game, Colangelo attended a [[Chicago Cubs]] baseball game at [[Wrigley Field]]. Soon thereafter he decided to inquire to [[Major League Baseball]] about bringing an expansion team to Arizona. He assembled a group of investors in 1994 to buy a franchise, a year ahead of MLB's proposed expansion selection meetings. In 1995, Colangelo's group was granted an expansion team, the [[Arizona Diamondbacks]].

The Diamondbacks began playing in 1998. For his new baseball club, Colangelo hired [[Joe Garagiola, Jr.]] as general manager. He next brought in [[Buck Showalter]] coming off a successful stint as manager of the [[New York Yankees]]. Showalter and Yankees owner [[George Steinbrenner]] did not agree to a contract extension, so Colangelo quickly hired Showalter as future manager of the Diamondbacks. These hirings proved to be instrumental to the expansion franchise's quick success. Key acquisitions made by Garagiola included the signing of [[Randy Johnson (pitcher)|Randy Johnson]] in 1999 and a trade for [[Curt Schilling]] in 2000 from the [[Philadelphia Phillies]].  They were co-MVPs of the [[2001 World Series]] when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in seven games. This is, {{as of|2024|lc=yes}}, the only major professional sports championship for the Phoenix area.

The Diamondbacks had gone into significant debt to build the 2001 champions. For example, he asked 12 of the highest-paid players to defer their salaries for four years and repay them over eight years.<ref name="usetoday1">{{cite news|url=https://www.usatoday.com/sports/baseball/columnist/bodley/2004-08-09-bodley_x.htm|title=Colangelo, D'backs' architect, feels hurt being phased out|publisher=[[USA Today]]|date=August 9, 2004|access-date=September 7, 2010}}</ref> The ensuing debt came back to haunt the Diamondbacks in [[2004 Arizona Diamondbacks season|2004]]. Only three years after winning the World Series and two years after winning a third division title in four years, the Diamondbacks never recovered from a slow start. They ultimately finished 51–111, the worst record in baseball and still the worst in franchise history.

By then, Colangelo was gone. He was forced to resign as Managing General Partner in the summer of 2004, and subsequently sold his interest. [[Ken Kendrick]] succeeded him as managing general partner, while [[Jeff Moorad]] became CEO and operating head of the franchise.

In an interview with ''[[USA Today]],'' Colangelo defended his approach to building the Diamondbacks, saying that he was only trying to build a winning team. He contrasted his approach with that of the Diamondbacks' expansion brethren, the [[Tampa Bay Rays|Tampa Bay Devil Rays]], who at the time had finished in either last or next-to-last every season (and would not have a winning season until [[2008 Tampa Bay Rays season|2008]]). He claimed that the plan only backfired when the economy went sour and he didn't get as much from baseball's central fund as anticipated.<ref name="usetoday1"/>