It's true that we depend a lot on the media for our information and opinions in life. No matter what country you live in, generally your window to the outside world is viewed with the images that the press forms for us every morning in the paper or on TV. This, of course, is a very dangerous thing. Fortunately for us we live in a free society where we can have access to many different avenues for our news, however, sometimes in sports we can still get some very biased reporting. This is mainly the result of their unwillingness to disrupt their sources with hard feelings. If a reporter criticizes a player, manager, or front office personal too much, then his access to those individuals could be limited in the
future thereby damaging his ability to perform his job. So with that in mind, we fans must be able to decipher what exactly the reporter is really saying sometimes. And that's just so wrong, isn't it? But that's the world we live in so tough luck! But we here at Rox Head will help you through this unjust situation and give you the real skinny.
EXCITEMENT OR
THE LACK THERE OF:
We think it would be difficult to be Tracy Ringlosby and
cover the Rockies. One must struggle and dig deep to find
something to get excited about with this team. In that vein
the Rocky Mountain News has dug very deep. What follows
is a brief smattering of recent articles that have appeared in the Rocky Mountain News. On Feb. 23, Mr. Ringlosby wrote about Danny Ardoin. Last year we talked about this player and wondered why it took so long for him to make the majors. He has a big league arm and is a good manager of pitchers. But, let's face it, the man is 32 years old and he isn't the future of the Rockies. This catcher just isn't going to get any one excited. Please don't misunderstand; I have tremendous respect for Mr. Ardroin. Not only is he a great athlete but he has persevered mightily against the odds.
On February 24, Mr. Ringlosby wrote an article called "Rockies looking chiseled". The article went on to explain about the high numbers of players participating in workouts and how great this was. I for one am not impressed. These are highly paid pro's who we hope attend workouts. The article is devoid of anything substantive and goes on to regurgitate what any fan knew about last year.
One February 25th we learned that Jennings will be the opening day starter. This wasn't a surprise and in fact it is what we at Roxhead lobbied for anyway. Again, this isn't exciting news; no average fan will be jumping up and down with the knowledge that Mr. Jennings is the starter. We at Roxhead like Mr. Jennings and have written about how impressed we are with his attitude and personal mental strength. We think it's great the Mr. Jennings earned a start but the average fan could care less.
We have a Rockies report on the 25th that informs us that the two coaches came by to see WBC team members Matt Holiday and Brian Fuentes. We also learned the pitcher Nate Field is expected to rejoin the Rockies. As much as I may like Nate Field, he is a bench pitcher who will see few innings if any and in the end have little impact on this team. Clint Hurdle was quoted as saying "All second year players need to come out and be a little better than least year".
On the 28th we learned that the Rockies had picked up infielder Jamey Carroll and that Omar Quintanilla will get some playing time and be a utility infielder. We also learned that catcher Yorvit Torrealba's shoulder is feeler better. These are players who will make fans hearts go pitter patter. I can just see people racing to the box office to buy tickets.
On March 1st we learned from Clint Hurdle that anyone who hits in front of Mr. Helton will have a good year and we hope that this holds out to be true. This actually was a head line. Bret Prinz and Luis Gonzales were sick, again, the citizens of Denver hold their collective breath in hopes of their quick recovery.
In the last weeks we've seen articles about who will be the 5th outfielder, who will be the 5th pitcher and even who will round out the bullpen. These are enormous stories of critical importance, NOT. And finally, today we learned about Jeff Baker. Mr. Baker is a fine player and a future potential starter on this team, but, he isn't currently a starter. He is a substitute and thus a player the casual fan won't be interested in.
There is a disconcerting trend in all of these stories and if I were the Rockies management I would be concerned. Basically, these stories are about nothing. The only people who will be interested are people like us (baseball nerds) and even I'm not that jazzed about these factoids. There aren't 5,000 people in Denver that will be able to name the 5th outfielder or the 5th pitcher. There will be even fewer who will be able to name two bullpen pitchers other than DeJean and Fuentes.
The bottom line is that there is very little to get excited about with this team. Nothing happened in the off season and we are banking that the current crop of young players will improve. Further, the Rockies are weak up the middle and starting pitching is dicey as always. The Rockies management should be very concerned because they have virtually nothing to sell the fans of Denver. The newspaper should be free advertising for the team and I have to believe they are inadvertently doing the opposite. If I was the King of the Rockies I would be pushing eight players who are: Helton, Hawpe, Sullivan, Holliday, Atkins, Barmes, Cook and Francis. These are eight exciting young players that this franchise is banking on. This team has, and rightly so, literally pinned their future on these eight guys. I would also push Troy Tulowitzki because he will eventually be a starter on this team and maybe even this year if Barmes and Gonzales don't work out. As a reminder Tulowitzki is one of only two Rockies who appeared on the Baseball American 100 future stars list.
I have been reading the Rocky in order to learn information about the Rockies but there just isn't much there and if real Rockie fans like us can't excited about this team then how will the average fan get excited. The Rockies marketing people better get going, because if April is bad then this summers attendance figures will be worse than ever and the last thing the ownership wants is for the people of Denver to start paying attention to the Broncos quarterback and wide receiver camp that will happen in June.
