What Might Have Been
Since I went to school in Boulder in the early 90s and grew up in a baseball family, the coming of major league baseball to Denver was a big deal in my life. When the Rockies finally debuted in 1993, I found myself on Opening Day sitting in the south end zone of Mile High Stadium with 80,000 other people. The Rockies became my team.
But then I moved to Seattle in 1995, and I sat in that mausoleum that passed for a ball park as Luis Sojo squirted home the insurance runs against the Angels. Suddenly, Seattle was a baseball town, and Refuse To Lose was the catchphrase.
Still, I resisted converting my allegiances from the Rockies to the Mariners. It probably wasn’t until 2001 or so, when the M’s won 116 games while the ownership in Denver was rapidly converting the team into the doormat of the National League, that I finally filed my Form 27 (Application To Change Team Allegiances) with MLB.
And now, it’s 2007. While the M’s spent the last six weeks squandering a 3 game lead in the AL Wild Card behind piss-poor managing and highly questionable personnel moves (Rick White? Really?), the young, rebuilt Rockies hung in the National League race, then went on a 13-1 tear the last two plus weeks. They play the San Diego Padres tomorrow afternoon for a playoff berth.
And as I watch the Mariners waste Adam Jones’ talent, start Horacio “7.16 ERA with more walks than strikeouts” Ramirez twenty times, and run Rick White(?!) out of the bullpen to blow it in crucial game situations, I ask myself why I even bothered to change team allegiances.
Let this be a lesson to those of you freshly arrived from elsewhere thinking of converting to the way of the Mariner: Don’t. It’s not worth the pain.
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Interesting topic to bring up. The Rockies’ comeback run is a great story, and there are a few things that come to mind when it comes to comparing them with the M’s.
The M’s ran into some AL powerhouses, the Yankees, Tigers, Indians, sure even the Angels. You don’t see such powerhouses in the NL. Teams that are better, sure, but no powerhouses. In fact, all three NL division races went down to the last week, whereas the AL’s playoff picture was basically wrapped up once the M’s fell out of it. There were no powerhouses for the Rockies to run into, just some evenly matched quality opposition.
The humidor really saved the Rockies, normalizing play a great deal compared to the launchpad Coors Field was before. I think the humidor is team MVP.
Todd Helton, on the downside of his career and good only for a high on-base percentage as his power declines, is owed more than $10 million per until 2011, in which he will be owed $19.1 million. I guess the upside is that at least he produces, unlike some big money 1st basemen *coughsexsoncough*.
Matt Holliday was a beast but Matt Holliday is a beast period. Arbitration for Matt Holliday is going to jack up his asking price from the $4.4 million he was paid this year. And the Rockies got really, really lucky with Tulowitzki.
After Jeff Francis, the Rockies rotation looks similarly spotty to Seattle’s, with the likes of Josh Fogg, Jason Hirsh, Aaron Cook and Rodrigo Lopez eating up innings with the prayer that they not crap out runs. Look at their K/BB numbers and we’re talking about ‘here it is hit it’ guys. The difference is in two things. 1) Cook is a great groundball guy, as is Lopez, and obviously Colorado goes after such guys to counteract their thin air… but it’s a case where their pitching staff managed to put together a solid year despite it all. And 2) Nobody other than Elmer Dessens looked especially awful. Just about anyone they ran out there was somewhat above replacement level. Fogg was as bad as it got, and he was about replacement level.
The M’s major weakness is, as they say, in the ownership position. Howard Lincoln represents Nintendo’s money, but he has no actual knowledge of who and what make a baseball staff. He listens to the wrong people and values the wrong traits in his staff. And he doesn’t have any idea there’s a problem, because the money bails him out.
Of course, Nintendo of America had much the same problem during his reign. Now that he’s retired they’re on fire again. We can only hope for a similar development for the M’s.
Maybe the point here is that all teams go through their ups and downs and switching allegiances isn’t something that one should do ever, if at all.
I understand moving to a new city and wanting to root for the hometown team because it’s fun to root with the town. Nothing wrong with that. Heck, I’ll even cheer for the M’s when I manage to get a free ticket to Safeco. But not when my childhood team is here.
Baseball is a slow sport. Teams take a long time to grown and change. If you don’t stick with them through the lean years, you don’t deserve to cheer with them during the great years. That’s why (in my heart) I can’t stand the M’s or their fans. It’s always whether they’re winning or losing. Never just a love for the team.