Neither Colorado Nor Arizona Fans Deserve Their Baseball Teams
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by Wade Garrett
With a man on first base and two outs in the bottom of the third inning of last night's game, Arizona Diamondbacks' pitcher Micah Owings grazed Colorado Rockies' Matt Holliday with a pitch. The hometown Colorado fans booed, implying that Owings had hit Holliday on purpose. It's possible that Colorado fans believed that, facing elimination and a four-game sweep, the Diamondbacks pitcher would hit a Colorado batter with a pitch, putting two men on base for Todd Helton, the Rockies' clean-up hitter. Helton is a .332 career hitter who has averaged 80 extra-base hits a year for the past decade. He is one of the top five or ten hitters of his generation. It takes guts to hit a batter intentionally to bring up Todd Helton in a potentially game-breaking spot . . . or its possible that Rockies fans are just morons. They've only had a team for fourteen years, you see, and since most of Colorado grew up in a baseball-less state, none of them appreciate the finer points of the game. As a fan sitting at home, it aggravates me that such baseball ignoramuses are five innings away from the World Series, while loyal, knowledgeable, and long-suffering fans in Chicago, Detroit, and Philadelphia keep waiting until next year.
This seems like as good of a time as any to mention that, as Holliday was trotting to first base and the Arizona catcher walked out to the mound to calm down his pitcher, the P.A. system at Coors field blasted the song "Call On Me." Colorado fans, shoot yourselves.
By no means do I intend to let Arizona fans off the hook. Last night's incident in Colorado reminded me of Game 7 of the 2001 World Series. That game saw ace Yankees closer Mariano Rivera hit Arizona second baseman Craig Counsell, to load the bases in the bottom of the ninth inning of the deciding game of the World Series, which happened to be tied at the time. That brought Luis Gonzalez - who hit .325 with 57 home runs and 110 extra-base hits that year - to the plate. Who would ever hit a batter to load the ninth inning in a tied game, let alone on the biggest stage in all of baseball? Who would do it to face Gonzo, who was the best hitter in baseball that year, aside from Barry Bonds?
Its entirely possible that I'm overreacting, because I'm from Buffalo, a city full of knowledgeable sports fans who's teams find innovative and heart-wrenching ways to lose big games. I'm convinced that mental depression and alcoholism in Buffalo would cease overnight if the Bills ever win the Super Bowl, or the Sabres ever win the Stanley Cup. Having said that, I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that Arizona and Colorado just flat-out don't deserve baseball teams as successful as the Diamondbacks and Rockies have been this year. Leave your artificial tanner, pom-poms, white towels, and thunder sticks at home. Take the price tags off of your shiny-new bullpen jackets, and, for the love of all that's holy, learn at least a few of the nuances of the sport before scalping your seats from real fans who actually know what the hell is going on out on the field. The day before the game, there were 12,000 unsold seats for both Game 1 and Game 2 of the NLCS. That's twelve THOUSAND. Diamondback management gave them away at Phoenix-area schools, retirement homes, and at suburban grocery stores. Red Sox, Yankees and Indians fans, who sold out their team's entire schedule before opening day, must have puked in their mouths when they heard that. Long-suffering Cubs, Tigers, and Phillies fans even more so.
Denver and Phoenix, or Colorado and Arizona - whatever the hell you call yourselves - you don't deserve major league baseball teams.
Wade Garrett lives in New York City. His blog is called Common Sense Dancing.
