A Brief History of & a (working) User's Guide to Purple Row

I’ve been reading PR since 2007, but as you all know, I didn’t actually begin participating in the community here until Spring Training 09, when Poseidon plucked me off the MLB board and encouraged me to relocate here. The history you describe is very enlightening to someone like me who didn’t actually read anything other than the articles until this year.

And I did only find Purple Row at/after the end of last season, but… As you know I’m an anglo-Italian with no prior baseball passion and I’ve never lived in the States, but the game seeped into my soul somehow and I needed a team to support to let it in properly. After flirting with others – the Reds (my mum lived in Cinci when she left school), the Red Sox (I was charmed by 2004 – so naive…) and – god, I can barely bring myself to say this, the Dbacks (I love Arizona and I love snakes) – I made this post on a.n. other forum:

I have finally decided which MLB team to support – please step forward, the Colorado Rockies. Would you use this thread to tell me all about my team? ― Mark C, Monday, 28 May 2007 21:58

Didn’t discover PR until a few months ago – mostly read the standard MSM content up to that point. I think my frustration point which made me use “The google on the internets” to find PR came right around the time when Hurdle was fired, and the MSM had so little to say about it. I knew how I felt, but how did other Rockies fan feel?

Then “The Streak” happened, and the MSM had little to say about it, and I was irritated with the “flame throwers” that left comments on the few stories that managed to appear on the MSM sites. I didn’t leave comments simply because I felt like the IQ level of the average commenter (read: troll) was below that of primordial goo.

My point is that PR is a community of classy, civil, thoughtful fans. I have a great appreciation for baseball. I enjoy thoughtful and respectful discourse, where F-Bombs aren’t required to convey ideas (Except for Bucky ‘EFFING’ Dent). Thanks for that. This is a great forum.

And I’m glad I did. So much great information from knowledgeable fans, insight, and discussion, even if all of the number crunching does leave me dazed and confused ;-)
Been a Rockies fan ever since they were created, played games with the Blake Street Bombers in Triple Play 96 on my Playstation, and put up the picture of Larry Walker batting backwards in the ASG on my wall.
The recent success of the Rox has finally been a vindication of those years where Mike Lansing was our best 2nd basemen, Preston Wilson was an all-star, and Curtis Leskanic was the closer (shaved arm and all!).
Anyway, looking forward to an exciting rest of the season, and hopefully another Rocktober!

Found this site when Hurdle was fired a couple of months ago. This site has the best info on the heartbeat of the Rox. Lurked for a couple of months then joined last week and made my first comment. The fans on this site know their Rox and much more than I have the time to know. Interested in Sabrmetrics, but haven’t had the time to devote to it with a job and a family in all.

Been a baseball (senior circuit) fan my whole life mostly rooting for individual players until I moved to Colorado from California in 1993. Went to my first Rox games at Mile-High that year and have been fan ever since!

Got my news about the Rox from KOA and I listened to every game during Sept. pacing in my living room hoping there was a chance they would make the playoffs. I bought 4 tickets to the first home playoff game the day they went on sale on the chance the Rox could pull it out. Best basball game of my life!

Warning: Reading this site will take your love of the Rockies to a dangerous level. You will suddenly know everything about kids that were just drafted and will probably never play for the Rockies. Your productivity at work will drop significantly. You will also become annoyed with warm weather fans.

Thanks for the history of Purple Row.

I have been a long time follower of the Rockies, still have my hat from the first year at coors field, but wasn’t aware of this wonderful place that is full of great articles and analysis of the team.

I hope to post more often now, and thanks for starting a place where we can all gather!

Xmas of 2000 when my cousin from out there got me a sweatshirt. Found the row when I was scanning through sbnation as one of my favorite college hockey blogs is here, I since have found a place to talk about the rockies.. Not many people up here are fans. And now I’m so obsessed I’m on vacation in wisconsin visiting the row on my blackberry. Thanks for keeping me informed! And I’m happy I found this place.

Been a Rockies fan pretty much my entire life, from the time I was a toddler and I went to my first game. Sadly, I only have one memory of it though, and that’s the wave. Earlier in the game, I had noticed that entire sections would stand up to try to catch a ball when it went into the stands. So, when the wave started, I thought everyone was trying to catch a ball. Imagine my dissapointment when after the wave had gone around five or six times and I still hadn’t caught a ball. According to my dad, I actually cried when it ended and I didn’t have anything.

Purple Row is seriously the most amazing website. I thought I was a diehard fan and knew everything there is to know about the Rox before, but I didn’t realize until I began to read this blog that there was so much more to baseball, statistically and just about being a good fan in general, than I had thought. So, I just really wanted thank you to all the writers and other posters who make the site more interesting and educational.

I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all aboard (I know it’s already been done). Earlier this year holly96 made a fanpost about the current location of our community. This was a great idea as it sparked *charlie77*’s idea for making a PR map. I think it would be cool to update this with locations from those who were not in on the discussion back in March. If you would like to be included I’m sure charlie77 would love to do it so post your locations here.

Once again Welcome Aboard and keep posting.

I remember when they announced the two new expansion teams and I decided that I wanted to root for one of these new teams, and I picked the Rockies. I wish I had some big reason why I chose them, but I really don’t. I remember watching their first game, against the Mets, and being disappointed that they lost, but a few days later was cheering like crazy after the EYS homer in the home opener. I also remember collecting the baseball cards that were the special expansion set, although I only got the David Nied and Andres Galarraga ones, the rest were all the Marlins. =(

I just discovered SB Nation back in February this year while looking for info on my NFL team, the Dolphins. I joined that one in March after reading for a bit, then decided to join the blogs of the other teams that I liked, and that is what lead me here to PR. Just my little bit of history.

Oh yeah, and I live in St. Louis.

I thought this was a Colorado Crush blog…

Of course, didn’t get involved until this year.

My first vivid Rox memory was CF of Mile High Stadium, singing Happy Birthday to Alex Cole. Rox lost to the Phils that night 10-7, but we left early to beat the traffic. I didn’t attend a game until ’95 in Coors when they took on the Mets and trounced them 8-5. Jason Isringhausen vs. Kevin Ritz. Dante homered that game as well as a few others (remember Mike Kingery was playing… no Big Cat but Walker and Castilla were there). Even survived a trip to Wrigley to see the boys lose 4-1 to those darn Cubs (Dante homered there too). Made trips to see them in ’05, ’06, a losing pair of games in ’08 vs. the Royals, and Opening Day at Coors this year (my first ever) and the last Dbacks series (2-1). Already looking ahead at a game in Sept.

In high school, I used to stay up late with my radio tuned to KOA — I lived in southeast Nebraska and could pick up the station late. My parents had a cow because I would be so tired the next day, but the Rox winning late with LoDo magic the night before was always worth it. It was a sad day when Dante was traded… thus creating the reign of O’Dowd… but I lived through it all. A couple names that made my stomach churn: Todd Zeile and Benny Agbayani. Who’d we trade to get them?

Anyway… I’m through now. Still following the Rockies and getting ready to implement a Rockies room in the house — with Rockies purple paint from Lowe’s and a Rockies fathead. Go Rockies!

Not meant as a brag, but I became a Rox fan the day the franchise was awarded, when I was stationed up in Cheyenne. I grew up around the game, but never really had a team of my own, since I grew up in Miami and Austin. Was an Orioles fan as a kid (because the O’s held spring training there in the 70s), and was kinda sorta a Cubs fan (because my dad grew up blocks from Wrigley) and kinda sorta a Red Sox fan (because they had Clemens, Calvin Schiraldi and Spike Owen, all former Longhorns). But none was truly MY team. The Rox were the first team I could claim my own.

I remember everyone even following the Bend Rockies with great interest, after our original draft of guys like John Burke and Mark Thompson (those Stanford pitchers never really work out, do they?)

I recall the shame and embarrassment when our original managing partner was indicted for business fraud, and we almost lost the team before we played a game. I remember wondering why we took scrubs like Dante Bichette and a washed up Big Cat in the expansion draft, and was elated to be proven wrong, even if it was only because of Mile High. I remember being SO jazzed about David Nied, after he had such a great September ’92 with the Braves; thought we had a real ace. Guess not.

Took off work to watch the inaugural game and the first home game. Attended my first game at Mile High in…August 1993, I think. Attended the next to last game ever at Mile High (weekend before strike). Moved to Washington, DC between the scheduled start of ‘95 season and when the season actually started, so I never got to Coors Field until I moved back here in 2005. I admit a lot of the years between 1995-2005 were tough to follow, because of the east coast bias and time zone differences. There’s a lot of names from the 1998-2001 period that I wouldn’t even really recognize as Rox, because it was literally more difficult to follow western teams from the east coast back then.

Anyway, I heart the Purple Row, so hard. Especially during years like this where my wife’s medical issues have prevented me from going to more than four games so far this year, and none since mid-June. Normally, we like to hit up around a dozen games per season. Hopefully, she’ll be healthy enough to attend our Division Series games against Philadelphia in October.

Since no one is on the MLB board, people think the Rockies don’t have any fans. I had been posting on the MLB board since I was 14 (2006) and frankly, that place is a ghost town. However, since switching over here primarily since about a month ago or so, I’ve been hooked.

This is a fantastic community and any true Rockies fan should regularly visit this place for great discussions and interesting news. GO ROX!

I have been a fan since the mile high stadium days, though I was barely in kindergarten then. I have been to at least five games a year since, following at least close enough to know the 25 man roster at all times. Somehow I didn’t realize the rockies were my favorite sports team until about 2006. I got very excited going into the 07 season, so my longtime fanhood was redeemed. I didn’t know purple row until digeratus at the mlb forum linked to David oh no’s analysis of the holliday trade. I joined immediately and was lucky enough to join the staff in January. It certainly is an obsession, but a healthy one :)

I’ve been a die hard fan since 1995, having just moved to Denver from Wyoming where the Rockies did not exist for all intents and purposes. Went to all the games I could from then on, but was severely hampered by being mostly broke until about 2000. I didn’t find the Row until September of 2007, but prior to that had been part of several different “message boards” and Yahoo groups. Left my last Yahoo group the second I found PR. It’s great to see how the site has grown since then (you take the highs with the lows). If I have complaints from time to time, they are minor compared to how much pleasure I get from being a member here. Thanks to Russ, Rox Girl, and the rest of the staff here for making this such an interesting and vital spot on the web.

Oh, and some of you really know how to make a guy feel old. Toddler, kindergarten, etc.??? Geesh.

I was 9 years old when the Rockies played their first game, and I remember being so excited that there was a big league club so close to me, here in Salt Lake City. We even got the Rockies games on WB 12, which was an over-the-air station, so I could watch wherever I wanted. We even had them on the radio here back then (which is not the case anymore), so I was chalk full of Rockies fever from the get go. I was a pretty avid fan and even collected tons of memorabilia and what not. I still have all of it, including books and books full of Larry Walker baseball cards, who was (and probably still is) my favorite Rockie. I don’t do the memorabilia thing quite as much anymore, as I have a house, cars, and school to pay for, but I still do what I can. Either way, I’ve always been and always will be proud to be a Rockies fan, and I’m completely psyched that I found a place full of hooligans to bond with. Writing for the site is cool (albeit time consuming with all the other crap I have going on), but interacting with y’all is definitely the best part.

It’s been a hell of a ride, and I can’t wait to start!

I’ve been with the Row since 2006 after seeing “Russ from Purple Row” mention it in a Baseball America chat. I also joined immediately. I don’t post as much as I used to, mostly because I am addicted to photography and spend most of my spare time on flickr. Some of my game shots are on my photostream.

I watch and or listen to every game however. The Rockies are everything to me. I have been a fan since Day 1, have been to all but three Opening Days, and probably close to 150-200 games in my life. With the ticket stubs to prove it.

Oh, and I hate off days.

I lived in New Mexico until the start of high school (1997) when my dad’s company got sold. We had the choice of living in Vancouver, Toronto, or Denver. I wasn’t keen on moving anywhere, so my dad flew me up a month before we moved and took me to a Rockies game. We sat 7 rows from the field on the 3rd base side. After that I was sold. All during high school I’d watch every game I could. I once had a job as a dishwasher where my little station would be tuned into 850 KOA and I’d listen to the games every night. That year we went 82-80. My senior year of high school I went to about 15 games without ever having to pay due to family friends no longer being interested in the team (they stunk that year). However that was the summer I was introduced to the tornadough, so it was a summer of love. After that I lost track of the team for a few years due to the fact that I was on a religious mission in Eastern Europe, but my mom would send me packages with the items inside lovingly wrapped by the sports section of the paper (gotta love mom). In college (at BYU, and yes I’m still singing the fight song Holly96) I would sit in my then girlfriend’s (now wife, we met playing MarioKart, how awesome is that!) apartment and “watch” the games on ESPN’s Gamecast. Unfortunately from that time I’ve really only seen Rockies games on Gamecast or Gameday. So in need to satiate my thirst for all things Rockies (sorry DP and RMN weren’t doing it for me, and I couldn’t stand the comments in the DP) I found this place on Google. I mainly read the blog the last few months of last year, but this year, after the kids and wife are in bed, and I’m still up studying for whatever exam is coming up, I’ll jump into game threads, or make a comment on a Rockpile. I like to leave the in depth analysis to the individuals that actually get to see the Rockies play, and while a guy with a high batting average is great, sorry RedHawk, I’ll take the guy with the higher OBP.