A Mile High Brand Of Baseball...
Baseball in this city sucks.
Live at Coors Field, we're down by one run, bottom of the ninth, and no one seems to give a shit. No one stands and no one cheers.
Denver is not a baseball town.
Edit: As I completed the blog entry, Todd Helton blasted a two-run walk off home run to beat the Dodgers 9-8, and complete the sweep of a day/night double header. That woke up the crowd.
Labels: Baseball, Colorado Rockies, Sports
This is a silly post in so many ways, but I'll forgive you because you're a newcomer. :)
Posted by Anonymous | October 5, 2007 at 2:49 PM
This post was written in the beginning of the Rockies late season surge. When the team's winning, the crowd seems to arrive.
Otherwise -- coming from a city that supports baseball -- I've yet to be impressed.
But if I've been losing for nearly 10 years, I may not get very excited, either.
Posted by M. Derrick Davis | October 5, 2007 at 4:08 PM
Alright man, you asked for it... so here comes my essay. :)
Inaugural year was a losing year and we still got the all-time MLB attendance record. We had continued attendance near the top of MLB until the owners broke up the Blake Street Bombers and tried to buy their pitchers (even through the losing years).
For a city that previously only had one playoff appearance, the continued fan support was still remarkable. Fans are won by magical seasons or by being in a huge market, and when you're a new team, you have to earn fans.
If you normalize attendance (even before this year's winning streak) at Coors per capita in Denver compared to Houston, there's no contest. Houston proper has almost 4 times as many people and the metro area has 2.5 times as many people as Denver. There is not a similarly drastic discrepancy in the attendance figures. That's not even considering the fact that the Astros have a WS appearance, numerous other playoff appearances, and a longer history.
I remember going to Rockies games as a kid and it being nearly as raucous as it has been lately.
I guarantee you the Rockies have just won a legion of new fans. Denver is ABSOLUTELY a baseball town, we just needed a team we could love (care to know how hated the Broncos were until the feat?). This team is not only a winning team, it's a team with heart and personality. Having you in town was a great catalyst for getting me back into the game, but my absence was also a product of being disgusted with the management for a long time and losing interest until you brought it back to my attention.
I encourage you look at the daily attendance at Mile High our first two years and compare it to the Marlins, Diamondbacks, and Devil Rays - the only teams that up to this point are even a fair comparison (heck, you can even normalize the 70,000 figures to the 50,000 capacity at Coors).
Whew... I think that covers most of it.
Posted by Anonymous | October 6, 2007 at 11:39 PM