This story was excerpted from Steve Gilbert’s D-backs Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

It seems hard to believe, but the Arizona Diamondbacks turned 25 this year with their 1998 inaugural season getting further and further away with each passing year.

The D-backs have packed a lot into those years with five NL West titles, one Wild Card berth, two NLCS appearances and, of course, a World Series championship in 2001.

All of that history was on display this past weekend at Chase Field as the club held a 25-year anniversary celebration Saturday with more than 50 former D-backs players in attendance. Each player was announced on the field as part of a pregame ceremony, as were all the club employees who had been with the organization since its inception.

Multiple scoreboard videos celebrated the history of the franchise with the 2001 World Series championship team getting the most detailed treatment. A lot of the key players from that team were there, including Luis Gonzalez, Randy Johnson, Tony Womack, Curt Schilling, Jay Bell and Miguel Batista.

Matt Williams was in town in his role as Padres third base coach, as was Padres manager Bob Melvin, who was Bob Brenly’s bench coach in 2001.

Greg Schulte, who has been the team’s radio voice since Opening Night in 1998, threw out the first pitch with Gonzalez catching.

The players were announced and celebrated Saturday, and there was a whole slate of events for them over the weekend, including a private dinner Thursday night.

“Twenty five years, that’s big,” Womack said. “Time goes by fast. I think we’re grateful they did this because guys had a chance to come back and have a great time together.”

For the players it was fun to be around former teammates, but it also was an opportunity for them to get to know guys they didn’t have a chance to play with.

“We’re family,” Womack said. “You know you don’t miss playing because Father Time takes over. But these dudes, man, we had the most fun on the buses, the planes, on off-days. That’s what you miss the most when you stop playing. It was great just to be with all the guys again.”

The camaraderie among the former D-backs players was not lost on the current group.

“It's cool to see and it's an honor to be a part of an organization with some winning culture,” first baseman Christian Walker said. “And it's really cool to look out there and see all those relationships this many years afterwards. You can tell how good of friends they are and how they're still rooting for each other. It's cool and it's exciting to understand that we're in those moments now, building those relationships. And I feel like, baseball aside, it just makes you appreciate the day to day and how cool it is what we get to do for a living.”

The D-backs surprised those in attendance with an announcement during the ceremony that next year they would open an Arizona Diamondbacks Hall of Fame at Chase Field.

Some of the details are still being worked out, but the D-backs' first induction class will feature Gonzalez and Johnson.

They are the only two D-backs players to have their numbers retired, with Gonzalez’s No. 20 being placed in the rafters in 2010 and Johnson in 2015 following his induction to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.