Of Todd Helton and freedom
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by user Shrubbery
As the drum beats signaling the passing of time and as the wind whips at 40mph outside my deck the unmistakable hallmark of spring is upon us. The beginning of April marked the first full slate of games in Major League Baseball’s 2006 campaign. The crack of the bat, the smell of popcorn and hot dogs, and the tall cold beer in hand have for over one hundred years ushered in the dawning of spring and all the rights of passage that accompany the change of seasons. As spring fades into summer and our nation’s pastime, baseball, carries the hopes and dreams of players and fans alike, thoughts turn to pennant races and record chases.
But there is one team and one player who are seemingly destined to be thrown on the scrap heap of baseball history as yet another in a long line of personal and team failures to reach the sport’s Promised Land. Without a doubt Coors field has become the Siberia of Major League Baseball. And Todd Helton is baseball’s Andrei Sakharov.
The Rockies haven’t finished over .500 since 2000 and haven’t been within ten games of a playoff birth since 1996. All the while Todd Helton has racked up a gaudy .335 average, 275 HR’s, 933 RBI’s, a .603 slugging percentage, and has won three Gold Glove Awards. In 2004 Helton became just the third player ever to hit at least .315, 25 HR’s, and 95 RBI’s in seven consecutive years. The only others to ever accomplish this were Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth. All this from Peyton Manning’s under study at Tennessee.
Now I realize the thin air of Coors Canaveral inflates batting numbers by up to ten percent but that doesn’t eliminate the fact that Helton has been the best all-around 1B in the game for the last seven years. Even if you project his stats for sea-level type production he would still have a career .304 BA, 227 HR’s, and 761 RBI’s. Not to mention he’s arguably the best defensive 1B in the game.
Helton is also one of the classiest athletes in sports. The bogus steroid accusations aside, Helton has been gracious towards the fans and the media. He has a number of charitable causes and has won numerous humanitarian awards in both Colorado and his native Tennessee.
The five-time All Star is the corner stone of an otherwise floundering franchise. The Rockies have all the direction of a cork in a bath tub. What was once a proud team with one of the steadiest fan bases in the league has turned into one of the worst franchises in professional sports as its only bone fide star wallows away in the gulag that is Coors Field. It really is a shame that one of the top five ball parks in the majors now houses the Mile High version of the Bad News Bears. And one of the true ambassadors of the game is doing his penance in baseball’s Purgatory.
This year’s improbable team success belies the outright horrid baseball played in Denver in the recent past. General Manager Dan O’Dowd has brought in and summarily dumped dozens of players and prospects since his tenure began in 1999. The one constant has been Todd Helton.
Such was the plight of Andrei Sakharov. The Soviet dissident was exiled in Gorky for seven years before he was allowed to travel freely throughout the former Soviet Union. Sakharov was a noted physicist who played a vital role in the Soviet nuclear arms research machine during WWII and throughout the 1950’s. He also was a leading pioneer in the development of nuclear fusion reactors, and, in fact, his designs are used and copied to this day. In 1975 Sakharov won the Nobel Peace Prize for his untiring struggle for human rights in one of the most oppressive regimes in recorded history.
In this respect Helton and Sakharov are kindred spirits. Both were stuck in no win environments and both struggled for their cause. Sakharov fought for freedom. Helton fights for hits, wins, and hopefully that World Series ring he so richly deserves.
Date
Mon 06/05/06, 7:44 am EST
