Rockies Game

A couple of weeks ago, Alec and I decided (and Dad provided us the opportunity) to brave the ferocious Philadelphia fans in order to see our wounded but beloved Colorado Rockies. The Rockies right now have one of the worst records in baseball, mostly due to the fact that only two of our original starting position players are healthy. That means that we didn't get to see the runner-up MVP (Matt Holliday) or our shortstop who should have been Rookie of the Year last year (Troy Tulowitski). Despite this, Alec and I were both giddy at the chance to go see them play.

We got to the game about an hour early, in order to see the Rockies' batting practice and to try and grab some autographs. As soon as we hit the front gates, we began to hear the taunts. Mostly it was 'Rockies suck!'... and we didn't see another Rockies hat (apart from the players) for about a half hour. We found our seats, which were fifteen rows up on the third base line, just past where the infield ends, and headed down to the fence to talk to the players. The first one that I recognized was Manny Corpas, one of our closing pitchers. I asked him for his autograph (in spanish), but I got a 'wait a minute... I'm taking fly balls'-type of expression. So we waited... and when the Rockies were done with BP, he came over and signed our stuff and we talked for a sec about Holliday and Tulowitski. After a little while longer, the starting players came out to start stretching and warming up. When they were done Ryan Spilborghs came over to sign autographs... he was swarmed by a bunch of little Phillies, and was about to walk away when I got him to turn back to sign "for a couple of Rockies fans!" He signed our stuff and as he did so I told him "Let's see it again" as he had hit a three run homer the night before. He told me he'd do his best and trotted off to the dugout.

The game began and so did the pounding. Not as bad as the previous night, though, when the Phillies drove in 20 runs to our 5. It was frustrating but still a lot of fun to be in a major league ballpark again. Anyhow, fast forward to the 6th or 7th inning. I think we're down 6-1 or 7-1. One man on base, and Ryan Spilborghs is up to bat. Boom. Two run blast over the left field fence. Could it have been my encouragement before the game? I like to think so. Lucky that he did it then, too... because an inning later it began to rain and lightning. Out came the tarps...so we decided to call it a night. We arrived home just in time to see the last out.