LeMahieu leads former Rockies and Coloradans in MLB postseason | DNVR ($)
As soon as the postseason started, we wrote about the pros and cons about cheering for every team. Baseball’s just more fun with a rooting interest. Another tack is to just cheer for the individual players who have played for the Rockies — whether they pitched just a couple of innings or won a batting title. Patrick Lyons takes a look at the former Rockies on all the remaining playoff teams. So if you don’t want to cheer for DJ LeMahieu and the Yankees, you can cheer for Gerardo Parra and the Nationals.
Here’s why Rockies fans should root for the Yankees to win the World Series | Denver Post ($)
Speaking of LeMahieu and the Yankees, Jeff Bailey of the Denver Post argues that Rockies fans should cheer for the Yankees this postseason. I’ll try to summarize the argument as best as I can: Because they have DJ LeMahieu, Adam Ottavino, and Mike Tauchman. If that’s not enough for you, they also have Colorado native Greg Bird.
This article, based on polling of sports fans, is really interesting and has a lot in it. A few things stick out to me though. First, it’s a great observation that the answer to a simple question, “how interested are you right now?” is a better indicator about the state of fan satisfaction than other go-to numbers, like attendance (I live 1,500 miles from Coors Field and attended two major league games this season). The second is the top line result of what fans of Major League Baseball said: 52 percent said it was the same, 25 percent said it decreased, and 22 percent said it increased. The third takeaway is the reason why those 25 percent are less interested. The most common explanation was competition for free time, and the least common answer was changes in the game that the respondent doesn’t like. So if there’s a decrease in fan interest — and overall there is not — it’s more likely due to listening to more serial killer podcasts than an increase in strikeouts.