The Colorado Rockies Final Home Game Of The Season

I went to the Colorado Rockies final home game of the season at Coors Field yesterday afternoon with my sister Susan and friend Mark, seen in the photograph on the left. It was a bit of an inauspicious start for Colorado, with the Arizona Diamondbacks scoring 6 runs in the first inning and leading the Rockies by a score of 12 to 1 by the top of the 6th. But then the Rockies attempted a comeback, scoring 7 unanswered runs in the last 4 innings for a final score of 12 to 8. Not a victory, but the Rockies put up a fight and didn't quit, which I found quite impressive. The Rockies have lost 102 games so far this season and are now the fifth team in major league history to lose 100 games in a season four or more years in a row, the last team being the New York Mets from 1962 to 1965, an expansion team to replace the Dodgers and the Giants, who moved to California. The bright side is that the Rockies have improved significantly since last season, and the farm system is producing some promising rookies. It is just a matter of time until they become competitive again. How much time is anyone's guess.

The thing I like best about the Rockies final home game of the season is that after the last out, the entire team walks around Coors Field to thank the fans for their support, as seen in the photograph on the right. They started this tradition after the final home game in their first season back in 1993, the year they attracted 4,483,350 fans to the old Mile High Stadium. This year attendance at Coors Field was 2,222,915, thanks to a very nice ballpark and so many transplants from other cities here in Denver wanting to see their hometown teams. When the Cubs or the Dodgers come to Coors Field, virtually everyone in the ballpark is rooting for the opposing team.

And I must add that it is a really nice tradition for the players to walk around the park and shake hands with the fans and wave to them on the final home game of the season, but some players really go out of their way to thank the fans. For many years, Charlie Blackmon, a four-time All-Star who played for the Rockies from 2011 until his retirement in 2025, would be the last player to circle the ballpark, signing autographs, shaking hands and talking with the fans, taking his time to meet every fan he could. I thought that was just great. And now, this year, Hunter Goodman, a catcher who made his debut in 2023 with the Rockies and is a two-time All-Star, appears to be carrying on that tradition, as seen in the photograph on the left. He is arguably the best player on the team these days and yesterday I noticed that he too was greeting each fan, shaking hands, signing autographs, baseballs, hats, you name it, as seen in the photograph on the left. It is nice to see that there are players like that still around. And the Colorado Rockies next opponent? They will finish the season playing my South Side heroes, the Chicago White Sox. The White Sox are one game behind the Cleveland Guardians in the American League Central, and this series against the Rockies at Rate Field in Chicago and the Guardians series against the Kansas City Royals in Kansas City will determine who finishes the season in first place. But it is not the drama I had been expecting. Yesterday the White Sox clinched a playoff spot no matter who finishes first in the AL Central and are the first team in major league history to go to the playoffs after consecutive 100 loss seasons. Holy Cow! Let the playoffs begin!