The Final Rockies Game Of The Season

My friend Mark and I attended the final Colorado Rockies game of the season at Coors Field yesterday afternoon. It was a very pleasant fall day, and the Rockies played a very decent game, beating the Minnesota Twins 3-2 in 11 innings. Of course, since the Twins will be playing the Toronto Blue Jays in the Wild Card Series starting this Tuesday, and did not want to use up all their pitchers beating the lowly Rockies, they put in an outfielder to pitch to the Rockies in the 11th inning, and he promptly threw a wild pitch allowing Colorado to win the game. But what the heck, a win is a win.

Mark and I, seen in the photograph on the right (I am the old guy without a hat), were sitting in the upper deck, right behind home plate, and so had a good view of the game. And I must say the Twins did not look so hot. I suspect they will probably be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. The Rockies have lost 103 games this year, a new franchise record, and for the fifth time in their history, my South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox, lost over 100, and so I know a thing or two about bad baseball teams. The Chicago Cubs, the White Sox North Side rivals, were 3.5 games ahead in the wild card race the last time I looked, but were eliminated by the Miami Marlins this past Saturday night, and so baseball fans on both sides of Chicago are once again saying "wait until next year." Rockies fans just don't care, as long as they can go to Coors Field and cheer for the team from the city they came from. Which was why a lot of people were cheering for Minnesota yesterday.

The nice thing about the last game of the season at Coors Field is that after the game, the players all walk around the field and thank the fans for their support during the season, as seen in the photograph on the left. This year some of them were taking off their jerseys and giving them to the fans, which was a very nice gesture indeed. And so the regular baseball season is now over and none of my teams will be playing in the post-season. That is okay. Even if they made it to the playoffs, I know in my heart none of them would get very far before being eliminated, and watching those games would cause a lot of anguish. Which is why being a sports fan in Chicago, or for that matter, Denver, is a very relaxing thing.