Here are some of the other tidbits from my trip to Denver.The robes in the rooms - new photograph evidence has surfaced. It now appears that the Hotel Monaco was not satisfied with just providing their guests with leopard print robes, some rooms have giraffe print robes; and thank goodness, they didn't miss out on the $30 "Not Complementary" leopard print ladies camisole and shorts.
I am going to back up a bit here. As some of you may remember, the day I left for Denver was the weekend where the swine flu panic was in full swing in the United States. Predictably, there were people on my United flight rocking the surgical mask.
As I disembark my flight at the Denver Airport, I counted 3 of my fellow passengers wearing masks to ward off the swine voodoo. One Asian lady, who is probably a veteran of the SARS pandemic, is wearing a surgical mask. The other two clowns, are wearing Home Depot dust masks.
I may not be a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I am fairly certain that a $4 dust mask isn't going to stop the evil H1N1.
I have to admit, I am a bit peeved at myself. I was totally unprepared for this trip. I had completely forgotten about the swine flu panic that was taking place across the country. Here was a golden opportunity to mess with people on the flight, and I didn't even have a sombrero nor a pork sandwich to induce panic.
Wednesday evening saw the 8 of us walking across downtown Denver to Coors Field to take in a Rockies game.
We had checked online early Wednesday, and found that we could purchase a 4 pack of Rockies tickets, which included 4 hot dogs and 4 regular sized sodas for $49. Being from the East Coast, and having been paying top dollar for crappy seats in rundown stadiums, this was an incredible deal.
Having been assured by our Denver colleagues that the Rockies never sellout week day games, we decided against purchasing tickets online, and planned on buying them at the box office.
The decision to buy the tickets at the box office turned out to be a major mistake. The game time was 6:45 PM, and we arrived at the stadium at 6:30 PM. Walking around to the side of the stadium to the box office windows, we were greeted with eight lines, at least 20 persons deep each.
At first, we were not too worried. 8 of us, 8 lines. We can just split up and take 1 line each, and we'll just buy all the tickets when the first person gets up to the window.
Simple, right? Nope. Not when every person working at the window was at least 90 years old, and every person buying tickets has to ASK ABOUT EVERY SEATING SECTION THAT HAD TICKETS AVAILABLE; with the Rockies not selling out the game, that makes EVERY SECTION AVAILABLE. Most of the lines hardly moved for the first 20 minutes or so.Out of the eight of us waiting, I am the only one from the East Coast that goes to sporting events on a regular basis. With each passing minute, I wanted to just start shoving people out of the way if they asked any question other than "How much is my total?" Really, the stadium is empty, just buy the cheapest tickets and move the fuck on. I kept thinking to myself, this kind of crap will never fly in the East; half of the people would be beaten by an angry mob for asking questions like "what's the difference between this section in the right field and these on the left field?"
After what seemed like 2 hours, we finally got to the front of the line and got our tickets (another 15 minutes of waiting as the ticket seller was typing in our selection on the keyboard with the hunt and peck method with one single finger, then calling over the supervisor when the printer jammed).
When we entered the stadium, I was quite impressed. It had all the modern amenities, great concessions (no lines either!), and several other things that I haven't seen in person in a baseball stadium.
First and foremost, we got in during the top of the second inning, and there are A LOT of empty seats.
I would estimate that the stadium is less than 1/4 full. This is quite a shock for me to see. The temperature was around 70 and not a cloud in the sky, tickets for less than $10 for most of the park, and yet no one is at the game. Even back the days where I used to go to Red Sox games in the 90's, before most of the front runners "started watching baseball" in 2003, Fenway would be 70% full on most weekdays.
During the third inning, the Rockies bunted a runner from first to second with a sacrifice. My coworker from Minnesota asked me if I had ever seen that before; meaning that I follow the Yankees and live in Boston, both AL teams that don't play much small ball. Well, to answer his question, yes - I have seen teams play small ball - I watched the World Baseball Classic.
That question got me thinking of the differences between the games I have gone to at Yankee Stadium/Fenway Park and Coors Field.
Well, the first thing would be the empty seats and the ticket prices mentioned above. The next thing I have noticed is that people at the game isn't really that into the game. Not much yelling, cheering or cursing - they just kind of sitting there as if they are sitting on a park bench on a nice day. Sure they would cheer when the home team got a hit or made a nice catch, but missing is the atmosphere where the crowd is hanging on every pitch - the cheer for the home team pitcher when he throws a strike, or the "awwww!" when a close pitch is called a ball.
The next thing I noticed was the between inning entertainment after the 3rd and 4th innings.
First up was a challenge where they had picked someone from the crowd for a chance to win a free authentic Rockies jersey. The challenge was the person had to run from the left field wall (I think it was at the 390 feet mark) to second base (the base had been removed from the mounting and sitting on its side), place the base back into its mounting and run to first base.For the person to win, they would have to do this before the 20 second clock on the jumbotron reaches zero. Well, the unfortunate soul they picked to run this event was not in very good shape. In fact, I think the woman would have done better if there was a double cheese burger sitting on first base. Predictably, she didn't even come close to beating the clock. The crowd gave her a nice cheer and that was that. I think the Boston / New York crowd would have crucified her.
Next up was another challenge to win a Rockies gift pack. Another person had been picked from the crowd to shag fly balls in center field. The contestant had been a guy who looked to be in his late twenties, and probably had not seen athletic competition since kickball in 2nd grade.
The ball was to be shot from a giant slingshot in left field, and he needed to catch at least one out of two to win. With the first one, the guy took off towards the slingshot as soon as the ball was launched, not bothering to even read the trajectory of the towering pop up. The result? he over ran the ball by at least 20 yards, froze and watched the ball land even though he had ample time to recover and get back to the ball.
For his second and last chance, the man smarten up. He started back further, and waited for the fly ball to reach its zenith, and then started to move to catch it. Instead of running with the glove tucked towards his body, he decided to run with both arms flailing. After 4 steps, he does a face plant. The crowd again politely cheers the guy as he is escorted off the field. In New York or Boston? I think the crowd would have followed the guy home and booed his family and egged his neighbor's house.
After the display of Rockies version of the Biggest Loser, I decided to take a walk and take in the sights of Coors Field. I walked along the mezzanine level - all around the lower level. Among the things I saw was a nice playground, full of children on the jungle gym and slides. People milling around and chatting, watching the sun set behind the Rocky Mountains. It was rather nice, the stadium was more like a park where people go to relax for the evening rather than to watch baseball.
All in all I have to say that I am quite impressed with Coors Field. I had a nice time watching my first National League game, the price was reasonable for both the tickets and the concessions. The game turned out to be a joke, Rockies beating my old friend Randy Johnson and the Giants 11-1. A good time was had by all.
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