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Rockies fall in four

The story that will be told the most tonight is that of the Boston Red Sox, who just swept their second World Series in four years.

It's a good story, if you're a complete freaking moron who believes it's weird for a team not to win championships very often, as Red Sox fans once believed.

I'd rather talk about the Colorado Rockies, whose season ended on somewhat-low-but-honestly-quite-high note tonight. It's unfortunate that Colorado's miracle run through the postseason came to such a sudden stop in the World Series, and I suppose it's too bad they couldn't win at least one game in Coors Field. But I'm still amazed I was watching a World Series game at Coors in the first place.

I don't mean to make the team sound like lovable losers, or that I'm pleased with the Series outcome. I'm not. Missed chances might hurt the most in baseball, because getting to the championship round requires healthy doses of skill and luck. A basketball team can almost always make it back deep in the playoffs, or nearly back, the next year. Many football teams do, too. But baseball relishes tormenting the teams who came oh-so-close.

All of that said, the Rockies' playoff run was easily the most incredible thing that has happened since I started this blog. The only competition came when the Broncos beat the Patriots and, in a flash, hosted the AFC Championship game the next week. Like all Broncos fans, I love the AFC Championship. The Broncos were one game away from making the Super Bowl and setting off two weeks of Orange Crush mania. (Frankly, it would have put even the celebration of a Rockies World Series win to shame.) The Rockies, though, made it a round further than the Broncos, and with a team fewer expected to get there.

So while my heart aches, most of all for Todd Helton, I'm so glad he and the team at least got a shot. This Rockies team may still be young enough to have a bright future, but I'm just grateful that we've had such a wonderful present.

Comments

John said…
Well said. The Rockies had one of the great - and historic - runs this year, and we should celebrate the fact that they came back from 4th place on September 15th to play in the World Series. I would have liked to have a seen a different result or at least a better showing, but with our youn nucleus we should be competitive for a number of years. I hope Helton sticks around for another couple of seasons.
9:26 AM
John said…
And I frankly blame Fox Sports - if we hadn't been forced into a 47-day layoff so Fox could maximize its ad revenues, we might still have been hot by the time the Series rolled around.
11:38 AM
blaine said…
I agree with you John. While I was watching the world series games I couldn't believe none of the Rockies (Hawpe in particular) could catch up to a fastball. I've been watching the Rockies all year and they have been awesome at hitting the fastball. They couldn't catch up against the Sox. Why? Because their timing was thrown off by not playing for 8 days. Granted, the Sox have some great pitching, but all they were really doing was throwing fastball after fastball.
1:49 PM
Mike said…
Yeah. I think it's clear that the Red Sox were better this year...but the Series could have been so much more entertaining if it weren't for the 47-day layoff. I did like the dramatic World Series music, though.
2:22 PM
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