Baseball fans, among which I include myself, have a fascination with statistics. Most any baseball fan can rattle off the career numbers of any number of favorite players, and in some instances have committed whole franchise or league statistics to memory.
It's part of the what makes the game so engrossing. As I sat watching Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton play in his second to last home game before he hangs up his glove I was surrounded by people scribbling notes and numbers on scorecards, tracking the performance of every player on the field, recording the minutiae as well as the meaningful.
Double-Play Dave, my friend who had joined me for the game, and I exchanged bits of baseball trivia as we watched the Rockies light up Red Sox pitching for 11 hits (including three jacks) and 8 RBI to take the first of a home season-ending two-game series. During the season Dave and I text each other three or four times a week with what most non-baseball fans would no doubt regard as useless information, but for us it has meaning, it is has significance.
Having lived in the Denver metro area since Spring of 1998, it has been my pleasure to watch Helton for pretty much his entire career (He played 35 games for the Rox in '97, but I was in Glasgow then). He took over as the everyday first baseman for the Rockies on opening day of 1998, the very first Rockies game I ever attended.
He had big, big shoes to fill, as El Gran Gato, Andres Galarraga, the man who had manned that post since the Rockies first season, had set a high standard, hitting a total of 172 home runs and knocking in 579 runs in his 5 seasons wearing the purple and silver.
Todd Helton proved to be up to the challenge. His rookie year was a harbinger of great things to come, leading all major league rookies in the triple crown categories of average (.315), home runs (25), and RBI's (97), as well as runs (78) and hits (167).
If I'm lucky, I attend 7 or 8 Rockies games a year, usually against my old hometown team, the Padres. Over the past 16 seasons I've witnessed some exciting games (uh, no pitching duels, but quite a few offensive explosions - it's Coors Field). Helton has provided much of that excitement, early on with both his bat and glove, and later, after he developed a degenerative back condition, with his grit and determination at the plate to still produce (He has added more than 500 hits to his career total since the diagnosis).
It was with much gratitude and admiration that I watched Todd go 2-for-4 last night in the last game I'll get to see him play. He has earned a permanent spot in the hearts of minds of Colorado baseball fans, and it is with more than a touch of lament that we all stood on our feet every time he walked up to the plate.
Thanks for all the great memories Toddfather, it's been a terrific ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment