Purple Pride

Milestones aside, this baseball season will stand out for me for two reasons: (1) The Mets being 7 up with 17 to play and not even making the playoffs. (2) The Rockies winning 13 of 14 down the stretch to force - and then win - a dramatic one game playoff to win the Wild Card.

The Colorado Rockies have not been around for all that long, making their MLB debut in 1993. They moved in to Coors Field in 1995 and have been there ever since. With the Rocks making only their second playoff appearance (first being 1995), the Purple Pride Bandwagon is pretty jam packed. It was definitely great to see Coors Field packed towards the end of the season as the Rocks stormed to the playoffs. It also reminded me of some of the not-so-great displays of baseball I witnessed at Coors Field during the numerous Rockies games I attended while at UW (I think my Mom and Dad probably remember the 26-4 (?) debacle we witnessed from the Rock Pile one year). Let me also note that Coors Field is an place to watch a ball game - and you can buy a game ticket for less than a beer!

While this may be hard to believe, I became a Rockies fan while most people were staying home during some tough years. I had watched the Rockies make several efforts to put together a team that could compete in the National League. After the Mike Hampton/Denny Nagel disaster in Denver, the Rockies were basically forced (poor attendance wouldn't allow them to pay big names and a depleted farm system provided few answers) to start over.

Around this same time I started to become disenchanted with baseball in general. While baseball is - without a doubt - my favorite sport, we've had some hard times in recent years. It started in 1994 with the strike. Baseball seamed to bounce back, but we had apparently become firmly entrenched in the steroid era. While the home run has always been part of the game, the increased power numbers didn't make me a bigger fan. It made me long for small ball. To most, it probably isn't exciting to see someone lead off with a single, get bunted to second, and score on a base hit. But that's what I love about baseball, all of the complex strategy. In the end, however, it was the lack of a salary cap that really threatened my relationship with baseball. Over the past couple of years I got really disgusted by big market teams throwing money all over the place while most small market teams struggled pay emerging young talent.

And this is where the Rockies come in. Over the course of the last 3-4 years I've watched the Rockies young talent start to develop. And during the last month it all came together. After last season I had a lot of conversations with people about the possibility of the Rockies parting ways with Todd Helton. My typical response was something like this, "I'd really like to see him have an opportunity to play in the post season, but I don't think it is quite the Rockies' time so maybe they should trade him for more young talent." Well the move never happened and nothing made me happier than Helton's career defining home run last night.

Now we can only hope that the Rockies can hold on to some of their talent and compete for the NL West Crown for years to come! And no, replay does not belong in baseball.