D-Backs modeled themselves after Rockies

America West Airlines made over one of its Boeing 757s in Diamondbacks’ colors, painted a baseball on the tail, and took off on what was billed as the team’s “inaugural flight” on May 17, 1996.

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Destination: Denver.

D-Backs front office personnel, staff and investors made that flight — and many others, before and after — while in the formative stages of building their expansion franchise.

The Rockies, who had begun play in the National League in 1993, became a big brother/adviser to the D-Backs, a relationship that adds even more texture to their meeting in the 2007 National League championship series that begins Thursday.

“We looked at them as a model,” former D-Backs managing partner Jerry Colangelo said Tuesday.

“When we were awarded the franchise (in 1995), we went out to talk with anyone we could. The teams to look at were the last expansion teams, and we saw the incredible enthusiasm that the Rockies fans had for their team, the support they had even before their new park was built.

“We felt our game plan would be similar.”

There has been competition along the way. The Rockies made the postseason in their third season, an expansion-team record until the D-Backs won the NL West in their second year.

Rockies executive Charlie Monfort and then-D-Backs manager Buck Showalter exchanged heated words on the field after one Arizona victory in Coors Field.

But the constant has been the mutual respect that began as early as 1993, when Joe Garagiola Jr. flew to Mile High Stadium to attend the first home game in Colorado history.

The D-Backs consulted often with then-Colorado owner Jerry McMorris and his staff, which at the time included general manager Bob Gebhard, who has been with the D-Backs since 2005.

“The Rockies were very helpful. Their organization opened their doors. We had a great relationship,” Colangelo said.

Colangelo and McMorris grew close and remain friends, even after the “Three Jerrys” dinners in spring training — White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf also was involved — were no more.

“He was extraordinarily helpful in every respect as far as educating us, because we wanted to be educated,” Colangelo said.

The topics were as varied as the expansion draft, sales and marketing and stadium design.

“Buck Showalter came into my office several times and asked about our thoughts on the expansion draft — what our thought process was on preparing for the draft, what kind of players we were looking for, why we drafted so many pitchers, why this, why that,” Gebhard said.

The franchises took on a similar look, even to include sleek new ballparks in a revitalized section of downtown that bordered a viaduct on one side.

“When we started designing a ballpark, we spent a lot of time at Coors,” Colangelo said.

Even the special touches inside the stadium made an impression.

“We looked at how they devoted a wall outside their clubhouse with pictures and lineups and their award winners, and how they honored their minor leagues players in the press room,” said former D-Backs general manager Garagiola, now with Major League Baseball.

The D-Backs added both features.

Garagiola, who represented the D-Backs at the expansion committee meetings, remembers several conversations with Rockies executive John McHale regarding the issues the D-Backs should address in their presentations.

“He was extremely helpful,” Garagiola said. “They did a lot of things right in their operation. It’s an extremely well-run organization by a group of people who really want to make the baseball team, regardless of the success on the field, to be a community asset.”

That always has been a D-Backs mission.

The D-Backs varied from the Rockies’ experience in spending $116 million after their first season, when the loss of 9,000 season tickets caused Colangelo to rethink what he had hoped would be a four- or five-year “honeymoon” period with the fans, similar to what Colorado experienced, while the minor league system matured.

“We felt we had to be competitive right away,” Colangelo said.

“That led us to three division titles and a World Series, but it also put us in debt.”

Both roads have led to the NL championship series.