There is a perception Rockies fans come to Coors Field just to have a good time rather than watch a baseball game. That couldn’t be farther than the truth. Based on Rockies fans reacting about Dexter Fowler being traded and the Latroy Hawkins signing, they care a great deal.
They are not happy about the Padres’ moves, and that’s a great thing. It shows there is still passion about the Rockies in the Rocky Mountain region. Quite frankly, it’s remarkable there are fans that care after a bad product year after year.
Rockies owner Dick Monfort should be grateful they care. It beats apathy. There is nothing worse than fans ignoring a team. Instead of complaining how Rockies fans are ungrateful, the Rockies owner should appreciate the fans’ concerns.
The customer is always right, so the Monfrots should be listening instead of being defensive about his management team.
It’s one thing for an owner to rip fans for being ungrateful about a team not winning a championship, but it’s another thing to complain about fans being unappreciative about a team that fields a bad product year after year.
All Rockies fans are asking is to have their team be relevant all the way to September by playing in games that matter. They are not asking for a championship like Red Sox fans and Yankees fans.
It’s not too much to ask at all. In the advent of parity and many playoff spots in baseball, there’s no reason for the Rockies to not contend for a playoff spot year in and year out. There’s no reason to play out the season by the end of July as the Rockies demonstrated this season.
What makes baseball fun during the summer is fans get to be entertained by watching guys play for something. Those games mean a great deal since it helps them be in a position to play in a pennant race in September.
There’s nothing like a playoff atmosphere in September when fans experienced the agony and happiness of a pennant race. Coors Field was the place to be in 2007 when the Rockies won games in September 2007 that helped set the stage for Rocktober. The Rockies feeded off from the fans’ energy in winning September games that year. It was like watching the Seahawks’ 12th man do their thing at Seahawks’ home games.
That’s what Rockies fans want to experience again. They don’t want to go to Coors Field to party and fool around. They don’t want to go to the stadium just for the ballpark experience. Outdoor baseball were a cool thing when the Rockies were born in 1993, but fans want to see a winning product now.
The Rockies can sell the ballpark experience all they want, but the place was dead in September this past season. That can only go so far. Better product gets fans to come, not the nuances of the ballpark.
Monfort can tout about the Party Deck making the stadium better, but no one cares. What fans want is a winning product. They will settle for a new general manager and a manager. They want a new front office that is creative in making trades and finding talent. They want a manager that knows what he is doing in the dugout.
Dan O’Dowd and Bill Geivett does not inspire confidence when it comes to building a baseball team, and Walt Weiss has no business managing a Major League Baseball team based on him being as overmatched as Nets coach Jason Kidd is at his job. Sadly, these guys are in no danger of losing their jobs. It’s no wonder why Rockies fans are infuriated.
It’s interesting why Monfort likes his baseball people despite poor results. The guess is the Rockies owner is more involved with the day-to-day operations than he is letting on. That should explain why O’Dowd and Geivett never talk to the media and why the Rockies owner speaks for them.
There won’t be changes for a long time. Monfort is not selling the team, and O’Dowd and Geivett are set for life.
Sooner or later, apathy is coming. The Rockies brought time from the fans after couple of playoff appearances in 2007 and 2009. Now, it seems like 10 years ago.
The Rockies can try to make fans look like suckers by saying Justin Morneau makes them better, but no one is falling for it. Not when their new free agent hasn’t hit 20 or more home runs in the last few years after a concussion. The Fowler trade does not make the Rockies better.
The Rockies haven’t made an effort to improve in recent years, and there’s no reason to think this offseason will be different. Geivett claims the Rockies are not done in making more moves, but he said the same thing last year, so don’t take him seriously.
It’s hard to get excited about next season.
Only one can wonder when anger turns to apathy with the Rockies.
Related articles across the web
Leslie Monteiro
Leslie is a contributor for Lightning Rod Sports. He covered high school sports in Bergen County out in North Jersey, and has written op-ed columns on sports such as Bleacher Report and NY Sports Digest.
It’s hard to tell if Monfort is brilliant or ignorant. I have met the man a few time and his is nothing if not nice. Extremely open, confident and characteristic. A man has to wonder what his thought process is with the Rockies tho. Is he content to endure the hate, (yes, it is hate at this point), to keep the Rockies where they are and continue to rake in the profit? I know he said that they don’t actually make any profit but that is a statement I find very hard to believe.
Or are the Monfort’s simply ignorant of baseball and baseball men? They just don’t have the ability to hire relevant and competent employees to handle the baseball operations??
I sure hope he’s just stupid and not consciously sticking in right in my bung hole every year. At least stupidity uses lube.
Here’s what I think, Shayne. Monfort is overseeing the baseball operations, and O’Dowd and Geivett are only there for the ride more than anything.
Does anyone think O’Dowd wanted to accept warm bodies for Fowler? Does anyone think he would be in a rush to trade Fowler and get nothing? That’s not the O’Dowd I know.
Monfort thinks he knows it all when in reality, he doesn’t
The Monforts are actually smart and savvy businessmen. They know how to make a profit. This team can put 25,000 plus fans in the seats even when the team is pathetic and out of any consideration is September. The Root contract is good for a long time. There is a large guaranteed add revenue. The Monforts and the local ad people know that the Colorado fan base will come and spend even if the sport team is bad. So to make the most money the Monforts need to make a team to play the game and not one that can actually win.
My prediction is that the Rockies can not win 70 games in 2014 and I would not be surprised if they lost 100 or more.
I actually hoped that they were going to try to do something this year. I even paid my season tickets early this time. If I had not we would not be getting them this year. But we won’t be getting them in ’15.
There’s no question the Monforts are good businessmen, but they don’t know how to run a sports operation. Jerry Jones and James Dolan are good businessmen, too, but it means nothing if their teams are run poorly.
Even if the Rockies fans boycott, it won’t do much since you got transplants or fans that travel to see their team at Coors. It’s tough.
I think the Rockies can be around 76 to 84 wins at best. I don’t see how this year is any better than last year. The key to Rockies’ success will be how healthy Tulo and Cargo are.