Telecosm - Ike Elliott

Can The Rockies Do It Again?

Can the Colorado Rockies make the Major League Baseball playoffs?  Stranger things have happened...and they did, just last year.

Consider this:  exactly one year ago, the Rockies were 6.5 games behind the division-leading Diamondbacks, and 4.5 games behind the wild-card-leading Padres.  The Rox came back and won the wild card, and then swept the playoffs to reach the World Series.

After last night's 7-2 victory of the San Franciso Giants, the Colorado Rockies stood just 6 games behind division-leading Arizona.  The team has been playing great since the All Star Break, winning 24 of their 38 games.  Can the Rox repeat last year's miracle and ride a big second-half surge to the playoffs?

This year, the Rockies are too far out of the wild-card race (15 games behind Milwaukee), but being 6 games back in the division race, the division title looks like it is within reach if the team can keep playing at its current level. 

On the other hand, the pitching rotation doesn't look as strong right now as it did last year.  Tonight, Livan Hernandez pitches again, and he has looked...well, let's just say today's Livan Hernandez is not the same as the one who pitched so well in the World Series a few years ago.

Performance-Enhancing Drugs Destroying MLB

The publication of last week's The Mitchell Report only told us what we already knew, that a lot of professional baseball players are taking performance-enhancing drugs to try to get an edge.  There are two big problems with this:

1. The game ain't fair.
2. Because the game ain't fair, players who wouldn't ordinarily consider cheating are pressured to take drugs, just to keep their jobs, and in the process, they endanger their health.

Fairness in professional baseball needs to be restored so that fans can believe in the integrity of the game, and believe in the records that are broken by today's players, and so that players can compete without risking their health.  That is no easy task, because some performance-enhancing drugs can't be detected by testing, like Human Growth Hormone.  Still, MLB needs to put in place a drug testing program with some teeth in order to let players know they are serious about restoring fairness.  Shame on MLB for not doing it sooner.

As for taking steroids or HGH to try to get an edge, I think the temptation will always be there for players.  Who among us hasn't been tempted to sacrifice our health for career advancement?  I can certainly give countless examples in my own life of skipping workouts in order to complete work assignments, and botching my diet while on business travel.  This is human nature, and it is not limited to baseball players. 

Still, MLB needs to do everything in its power to reduce the temptation to cheat, and to restore the integrity of the game.  If it does not, it risks losing its fan base, starting with me.

No Taco For You! Rox Get A Reality Check

Either the Colorado Rockies were not as good as I thought, or the Red Sox were better than I thought.  I was kind of put out on Friday when I talked to some friends in Boston, after the 13-1 drubbing in Game 1, and heard that the fans and the media were saying that the Rockies were no competition for the Red Sox, that the Sox were sure to sweep, that the Sox would get to play their backups a lot, and that the National League is the farm system for the American League.  That last one especially hurt, because I have been a National League fan my entire life (Cincinnati Reds until the Marge Schott fiasco, then the Rockies since then). 

Now, I have to admit that those Sox fans were right, all except for the part about playing their backups.  The Rox were a lot more competitive in games 2 through 4, but they were still swept by a better team. 

You can't deny that the Rox were pretty good in their season-ending streak, but I think two things worked against them in the series:  the 8-day layoff prior to the start of the series did hurt their momentum a bit, but more importantly, the youth and inexperience of the Rox showed in the series.  A lot of Rockies hitters looked nervous, especially earlier in the series.  Many Rockies pitchers struggled against a great Sox lineup.  Yes, the two rookie starters on the Sox played great, but the Rockies have more young players and some of them crumbled under the pressure.  Good experience should they make it back to the playoffs next year.

I think that next year the NL West will be just as competitive as this year, despite the Rockies' late surge.   There are a lot of good teams in the West, and they will be cannibalizing each other all year, and the division title and possibly the wild card will be up for grabs again at the end of the year. 

I may have missed my only chance to see my first World Series game...I had tickets for game 5.  At least I can get a free Taco at Taco Bell tomorrow afternoon!

Oh The Misery - Rockies Down By Two

I am wallowing in my misery here, the day after the Rockies dropped Game 2 of the World Series to the Red Sox.  I'm not about to do anything so desperate as jump out of my ground-floor window or anything, but I had hoped for better.  It was critical for the Rox to take one of the first two games in Fenway, and they didn't get it done.  To hold the Sox to two runs and still not win...that hurts.  Credit the Sox pitchers...they made the Rox hitters look very uncomfortable in the first two games.  Hopefully we can break the team-wide slump on Saturday night.

Getting Rockies World Series Tickets Like Running the Gauntlet

Wow, what a roller-coaster ride!  After two hours of trying, I just squeaked in and got 4 tickets to Game 5 of the World Series here at Coors Field, way up in U303, which is one of the nosebleed sections in right field.  Getting there, though, was frustrating, and I'm still steaming. 

A little history for those that don't know it:  The tickets were supposed to go on sale yesterday at 10 am, only through the Rockies web site.  I wasted a little over an hour trying to get tickets yesterday morning before I had to go to an appointment, and I never really got through to anything looking like a purchase page.  I learned on the radio later in the day that the web site was overwhelmed with requests and as a result only about 500 tickets were sold.  The Rox brass later claimed that they had been targeted by a malicious attack.  I suspect they are just using this excuse for cover.

Today, the system performed only a little bit better.  After about an hour of waiting for one of my four computers to get through to the web site, my iMac let me in and as quickly as I could, I navigated the screens.  This actually was very slow - the Rox servers were extraordinarily slow.  Anyway, I got a lock on 4 fantastic seats to Game 3, in section 143, row 36, which are lower seats along the left-field line, about 20 yards past third base.  When I entered the credit card info and tried to check out, the server told me "couldn't confirm the transaction."  Aaargh!

It took me another hour to get through to get the nosebleed seats for Game 5. 

I have now spent more time getting tickets than the game will probably last.  I guess I should just be happy I got some tickets, no matter how remote the seats are.  Still, I wish I had those Game 3 seats in section 143!

Did you try to get tickets?  Did you have similar troubles?