I'm tired.

Monday night I quietly rode the AF bus home from the Market Street station, listening to a couple people casually talking about the game, mispronouncing names and referring to critical players as "that guy" or "that one player who hit it". At this point, I'm rolling my eyes, but I'm not going to interject them and tell them what was really up. I've been doing that all season. I'm the Rockies guy. Everyone asks me about trades, the roster, "what's up with the pitching?" etc. In fact, after Game 1 in Philly, I showed up to a class for my Master's program about 10 minutes late, and the professor said, "I'm so sorry". No admonishment, no note of late attendance, but rather sympathy.

No, the season is over. I'm not the Rockies guy tonight. I'll let them have their conversation without bothering them. Instead, I just clicked on the light on up above me and went back to my book, "The Soul of Baseball: A Road Trip through Buck O'Neil's America". It's a nice, quiet book about Buck O'Neil's experiences in baseball, and his experiences as an African-American living in the US during the time when he played baseball. It's a good book to ease a heart aching from a long season cut too short.

I woke up Tuesday morning and it was one of the first really dark mornings we've had this fall. I wondered what time it was, if I'd woken up too early, etc. I showered, ate, dressed, and headed out to my car, and the sky was dark and overcast, gloomy, unhappy, ready for winter. It's kind of amusing how the weather and the season coincided: an overcast gloomy morning, no sun in sight, and Rockies baseball has ended for the year.

It does sort of feel like our joy has left, the team and sport that get us all excited and giddy every summer, the sport that makes me suddenly get all snobbish to other sports fans. Now it's done, I feel like the guy in that Colorado state lottery ad, where he's at Invesco, and the Raiders fans make him go up top, and he sits down all dejectedly and defeated. That's how I feel right now, like I have to give up and go to the Pepsi Center or Invesco or something and slump down into a box seat to try and root for teams I really don't care about anymore (the Avs are somewhat an exception: I half-care about them) and join the teeming masses who just don't GET why I'm kind of bummed out now, they're just ready to go root for another Denver team who's winning at the moment.

But it isn't the same, the Broncos, the Avs, the Nuggets - they're not the Rockies. The Broncos, Nuggets, Avs - they seem to be built on hype, on loud noises, on good will from championships past. Sure, we had 2007, but how much of the bandwagon dissipated as the festering horde of Red Sox fans crowded the seats around home plate chanting "RE-SIGN LOWELL! RE-SIGN LOWELL!"?

More past the jump

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Huston Street's blown save absolutely should not allow us to forget the awesomeness of the bottom of the eighth last night.  If you are sufficiently numb, masochistic or very strong, I filmed (very amateurly on a still digital camera) the bedlam that ensued after what surely must be now known as the Rocktober Yorvit Special:  a lead-giving-bases-clearing-double-over-the-center-fielder's-head:

It was symbolic in many ways.  The Rockies were kicking, screaming and fighting until the end - a glorious, wild, and entertaining finish.  Yet it just would not be enough.

As it is, the future looks bright:

I have a small handful of other photos after the jump.

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Having just returned from the fourth (and unfortunately final) game of the NLDS, I feel...numb, empty, like I've been kicked in the stomach and, well, I don't know. It just sucks. Sorry that I can't put it more eloquently than that. The Rockies had a great year and I enjoyed the experience thoroughly, but the way it ended is going to leave a sour taste in my mouth for a long while.

I could write for quite some time about the actual events of the game and what went wrong in my opinion, but that would be too emotionally traumatic and draining. Instead I'll comment on the playoff atmosphere that I encountered. You see, these two games were my first ever taste of playoff baseball. Despite the results, I enjoyed the experience very much.

Game 3

Sunday was a very busy sports day in Colorado, what with the Broncos taking on the hated (by me anyway) Patriots. As soon as victory was secured my father, sister, and I headed down to Denver, where we met up with my other sister, and somehow found $10 parking at 22nd and Broadway. Those of you who had warned about this were sure right! There were numerous $40 lots even a long ways from the field. In any case, we managed to make it to Coors Field by about 7:45. Unfortunately, the lines to get in were kind of a zoo, as you can see below, and we waited 25 minutes to get in using the Rockpile gate.

As a result, by the time we got to our seats Chase Utley had just hit his home run. We were located in section 158 in the pavilion--better known as the place where the Rally Todd sign lives--and we were only three rows beneath that sign. In fact, it was later verified that we were in the shot when TBS showed the sign (sweet, I was on national TV!). But I digress.

As Poseidon's Fist noted in his recap, there weren't very many Phillies fans visible for this game and my section was remarkably well-behaved, if a little underinformed. There was a bunch of heckling the umpire about balls and strikes--which was probably pretty commonplace throughout these games--despite those complaining being 450 feet or more from home plate. When the Rockies did something well, the crowd was very enthusiastic, loud, and demonstrative:

 This was taken right after Garrett Atkins' double to drive in the Rockies' third run. It was certainly cold at the game, especially as it wore on, but everyone in my group (and my section for that matter) was well-prepared for it. However, by the ninth inning the noise volume of the crowd and the frenetic towel waving had decreased a little bit as the combination of a one-run deficit and four-plus hours of chilly temperatures took its toll. Our section was still on its feet, but the enthusiasm for the moment seemed to be on a lower level at the four hour mark of the game.

On the whole though, the atmosphere for this game was absolutely electric, with more than 50,000 voices (and towels) making it very clear that this game meant something. The Rockies definitely seemed to be feeding off of the crowd in the early parts of the game, though they weren't able to secure the victory.

Notes

• I called the Feliz 1-2-3 double play and CarGo's home run...immediately before they occurred
• I was also horribly wrong about a number of other predictions, so don't read too much into the previous bullet point.
• Bad puns my sister made up about the Rockies' center fielder: "that ball needed to be Fowler", and "he's not ambidextrous, he's ambidexterous.
• The loudest the stadium got in my opinion was when Helton batted in the seventh with runners on first and third. They played the Star Wars theme and everyone went crazy. Second place goes to the Tulo chants that immediately followed the Helton at-bat, with the Betancourt strike out to end the top of the eighth coming in a close third.
• Despite being 450 feet away from home plate, it sure looked like the strike zone was inconsistent. I didn't see the Utley play clearly, but it didn't look right to me in the pavilion.
• The between-inning entertainment was a little weak. I was hoping for some special stuff but it was basically the same material as a regular season game.
• Dinger is a stupid mascot.
• Waving towels is fun. Doing it with 50,000 of your closest friends is better.

In any case, when Tulo popped out to end the game it was a pretty somber, silent, overcrowded march back to our car...and due to the late game time we didn't get back until 2 am. I barely had time to sleep, go to my classes, and be ready to return to Coors for another shot at the Phillies. Game 4 notes after the jump.

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Last night was my first playoff baseball game.  For those of you who could not attend, I'll try to chronicle the experience at Game 3, the first playoff game at Coors Field since Jon Lester clinched the World Series for Boston almost two years ago.

I expected to feel exhilaration, anxiety and excitement for the game.  Oddly, my first two strong emotions were frustration and confusion.  In spite of arriving an hour early, I missed the first half inning, as the line to enter the stadium took over 50 minutes.  

Then the confusion set in as I walked through the tunnel to my section.  There wasn't supposed to be snow in the forecast...why was this kid wearing a ski mask?  What was with the dry snow falling down around me?  Then I realized it wasn't snow at all.  The kid was silly overprepared and the white stuff wasn't snow at all.  It was white fibers billowing off of 50,109 white and purple oscillating Rocktober towels.  Ah, playoff baseball at last.

Highlights:

• The game was exceedingly hard-fought.  Each time the Phillies scored, the Rockies responded soon thereafter, keeping the shivering witnesses in the game.
• There was no wave at any point.
• There seemed to be very few Phillies fans, though the one I ended up sitting next to was one of the nicest and agreeable fans of an opposing team I have come across.
• I told PhillieFan that it was about time to see a Carlos Gonzalez line drive home run to right.  Four pitches later, he delivered.
• I am completely positive the Tulo chant echoed all the way to Philadelphia.  Or at least to Golden.  As I commented in the GT last night, it literally vibrated my seat.
• To pass the time in a long entrance line, several loud and spontaneous "GOOOOO!!!! ROOOOOCKIES!!!" chants reverberated around home plate.
• Gotta love those towels.

Lowlights:

• We lost.
• My feet shrugged off the double sock effect and did their best Mr. Deeds impression.
• It was freezing cold.  While some fans remained rowdy, the chilly temperatures sucked the life out of what I would expect for a playoff crowd.  In the critical ninth, few stood and even the big screen that pined for life from the crowd wasn't enough motivation to thaw the fans.  The towels didn't have quite the desired effect.  This isn't an indictment, as I myself was fairly stagnant.  It was just cold.
• I saw Utley get hit on his ninth inning "single" from the upper deck.
• We still have a lame assortment of walk-up music.

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Discuss the game here (click me).

Ladies and gentleman, it's that time of year again. Yes, that's right: It's Rocktober! Wonderfully amazing and so full of Rockies goodness!

And here we are at Purple Row for the second time in three years covering the Rockies in the postseason--and in Philadelphia again of all places. Make it a good one, boys!

GO ROCKIES!

Ubaldo Jimenez

#38 / Pitcher / Colorado Rockies

Height: 6-4

Weight: 200

Bats: R

Throws: R

Born: Jan 22, 1984

 

 

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	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
Playoffs	0-1	1	1	0	0	0	0	16.0	11	4	4	1	13	13	2.25	1.50

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Cliff Lee

#34 / Pitcher / Philadelphia Phillies

Height: 6-3

Weight: 190

Bats: L

Throws: L

Born: Aug 30, 1978

 

 

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	W-L	G	GS	CG	SHO	SV	BS	IP	H	R	ER	HR	BB	K	ERA	WHIP
2009	7-4	12	12	3	1	0	0	79.2	80	35	30	7	10	74	3.39	1.13

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'Nuff said.

Dear Josh Fogg,

A year ago, you pitched in one of the most important games of your career. You came up big time. You went six innings and allowed only a run, a homer to that Mark Reynolds character. It's too bad that you left the team and one of your myriad replacements turned out to be the opposing pitcher in this contest, Livan Hernandez.

Thanks for the memories!

Sincerely,

Purple Row

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Dear Yorvit Torrealba,

We constantly complain about you (and for good reason), but you had a great night a year ago. You drove in three of the four runs for the Rockies, two on a homer. The high point of your career?

Sincerely,

Purple Row

I had something written here, but then my browser messed up and it all went away. So, I'll just recommend that you look at both game threads to get a feel again for that night: Game Thread # 1. Game Thread #2. So many of those comments are quite amusing. Though reading through the comments, at some point that day I must have told Silverblood that the game was going to go into extra innings since she said I called it. Now, I didn't see a comment I made on the site saying that, so I must have made it earlier in the day when I spent the afternoon with her. Funny that it actually did turn out that way.

I think I only got one hour of sleep that night. Between three and six, I fell asleep three times for about 20 minutes each time. I had to wake up early the next day since I was helping out at a history conference the next day. I didn't fall asleep at all during the day. Watching the Rockies reach halfway to an NLCS victory couldn't be passed up.