Rockies take third of four from the Cubs

The Colorado Rockies beat the Chicago Cubs 11-5 tonight after the Cubs “rallied” in the ninth inning. It was the first Rockies game I’ve attended since the team won the NLCS. (What do you mean, “fair weather”?)

I went to the game with several friends from home, and we went in honor of two brothers from my neighborhood. One of them, a former HPS commenter, has just returned from a Mormon mission, and the younger is leaving town for his tomorrow (now, technically, that’s later today). Along with the group was my own younger brother, which was exciting, because we’d watched countless Rockies games at home in the late ’90s but had not been to a game together in years.

I was coming from the other side of town, so I picked up my ticket at will call, mostly ignored the instructions for how to get to my seat, then walked around to the Rockpile before realizing my seats were, ahem, on the other side of the park. Walking into a game is still an awesome feeling. There’s a tangible joy in the air you don’t feel often. Plus Coors Field, which is still the only place I’ve ever caught a major league game, is an absolute treasure in my opinion. I made it to my seat in time to snap a picture of Todd Helton standing in familiar territory after singling in the first inning to extend his hitting streak to fifteen games.

Next up was Troy Tulowitzki, the Rockies’ 24-year-old shortstop and a key member of the 2007 World Series team. Tulowitzki immediately crushed a home run to left field to give the Rockies an early 2-0 lead.

In the second inning, all sorts of cool things happened. Clint Barmes hit a home run. Yorvit Torrealba doubled, then advanced to third on a hit from pitcher Jorge De La Rosa. Dexter Fowler reached on a hit that maybe should have been an error on Cubs starter Tom Gorzelanny. When Helton got up, I started to get this feeling like I should be taping the game on my phone because something good was about to happen. Eventually Helton walked to load the bases for Tulo, who crushes an apparent grand slam, and I caught it all. Awesome! But the umps call it out, so I immediately and absentmindedly erase the clip. Then they go to check the instant replay, and I feel like a freaking idiot, before they decide that they were in fact right and Tulo did not hit a homer. Good fun. Wouldn’t be the last Tulo moment I screwed up, either. Troy ended up knocking in two runners with a single.

The Cubs shut us out for the entire third inning before giving up two more runs in the fourth, including one scored by Helton when Tulo knocked him in with a double.

The game went on, and the comfortable home-team blowout made enjoyable background fodder for conversation. In the sixth inning De La Rosa, who struck out 11 and gave up one run in 7 and 2/3, led off with a double. Meanwhile we talked about all kinds of athletes from our younger years. It’s worth nothing that, despite the preseason opener on Friday, we spent very little time on the Broncos.

When the seventh inning stretch began, I realized I needed to hurry if I was going to grab a hot dog. So my brother and I headed down right as the crowd started singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” (2:30). Now you need to know that this crowd, as you might expect, had a lot of Cubs fans in it. I wouldn’t say they outnumbered the Rockies boosters or anything, but you could hear them cheer pretty well whenever the Cubs did something right. Anyway, what happened next was an almost instinctive experience. Right when the song hit the first “root”, I could hear the crowd taking a collective inhale, and that’s right when it hit me, too, just in time to scream, “for the ROCK-IES!” loud enough, in my section at least, to drown out the opposing “Cubbies” fans. It was awesome.

The first concession stand I walked by offered several different kinds of hot dogs, each named after a different city and slathered, in my opinion, with all kinds of undesirable toppings. I like my cats dead and my dogs dry, so I moved around for a plainer Italian-style hot dog which ended up being kind of awful. I walk around to meet back up with Dan, and hear wild cheering and the announcers babbling something about Soriano on TV before we head back to our seats. I sit down and the fresh RM tells me, “you missed it.” I missed what? Well, Tulo hit a triple while I was gone, meaning he hit for the cycle.

The rest of the game felt kind of long. I stood to clap for De La Rosa when he left the game after a great performance. I cheered a lot for Tulo, who added another two-RBI single in the eighth. That let him finish 5-for-5 with seven RBI and two runs scored. An outstanding night. You know, the Yankees can have Derek Jeter; I just hope we hang on to Tulowitzki for a long, long time. And my bro and I got to rest our feet on the row in front of us, which just happened to be the famous “mile high” row of purple seats.

The Cubs fans got excited in the ninth, when they scored a few runs to make the final score a little less disrespectable. At one point a guy behind me changed the “Let’s Go, Rock-ies!” chant into a far more fun, “Nineteen-oh-six!” which I joined in on and is even more sweet considering the Cubs last won the World Series in 1908. I almost wish someone had corrected it…well, excuuuuuse me! Your team rocks!

Anyway, the Rockies game tonight was a freaking blast, and a great way to celebrate. If you haven’t made it to a game yet this year, I highly recommend it.