This
month is now known as Rocktober. – Sign held by fan at Coors Field in 2007.
When I wrote the first draft of
this column I was still tired from staying up late watching the 2-1 Rockies nail-biter
win over the Chicago Cubs, Oct. 2. The Rockies qualified for the National
League playoffs with the Milwaukee Brewers.
Alas, that series was a disaster as
they scored just two runs in three games. Was it pathetic? Yes, even for a die-heard Rockies fan such as
myself, it was a crushing disappointment.
Now it is back to the old refrain:
“Wait until next year.”
One of my all-time favorite Rockies
stories is about another dedicated fan, 95-year old Art Schutte of Greybull. His
son Mike tells the following about his old man:
“So, my father loved sports.
Because of his situation raising nine children, he never played but became a
great sports fan when we kids started playing. My first baseball coach was the
great John Kosich, who played both football and baseball for the University of
Wyoming.
“Dad probably attended 4,000
ballgames over the next 50 years. He umpired baseball for years, helped with
concessions and worked the fields that were located right across the alley
from our home in South Greybull. Because of his contributions to Greybull
sports, the town council named the sports fields, the Art Schutte Sports Complex.
“Dad and I
went to Denver several times to watch the Denver Bears, at one time a Yankee
farm team and went to Billings to watch the minor-league Mustangs.
“At some
point, I told dad that if the Rockies ever got to the World Series, I would
take him to a game in Denver.
“In 2007 the
Rockies basically played 50:50 ball for most of the season so no one was
thinking about the World Series. In August of 2007, dad was in a bad car
accident and his injuries were such that we thought he probably wouldn’t
survive much longer. He did survive his hospital stay but came out in a
wheel chair. He was hanging on.
“Then an amazing thing started to
happen. On Sept. 16 the Rockies were 76-72 and started one of the greatest
stretch runs ever. The Rockies won 14 of their final 15 regular season
games. The stretch culminated with a 9-8, 13-inning victory over the San Diego
Padres in a one-game playoff for the wild card berth. The Rockies then swept
their first seven playoff games to win the 2007 National League Pennant — the
franchise`s first-ever pennant. At the start of the World Series, the Rockies
had won a total of 21 out of 22 games.
“During
this amazing run, my dad seemed to be getting a little better and more excited
after each win. When they won the pennant I knew I had to fulfill a
promise that I had made years ago.
“God had
come through for me many times and came through again! I knew Mike McGraw
because we both played for the Wyoming Cowboys and had become close friends. Mike was running a ranch for Jerry McMorris,
one of the Rockies’ owners. Mike didn’t let me down. McMorris, at
Mike’s request got me two seats in the wheel chair area about 13 rows up from
the dugout for the fourth game. A wheel chair space for dad and a chair
for me right beside him.
“I will never forget how excited he
was to be going to a World Series game. I drove up to Greybull and picked
him up for the ride back to Colorado on the day before the game. We talked
baseball and other sports for 400 miles. He never even took a nap. By game time
the next day, the Rockies had lost the first three games of the series but that
didn’t hinder his great excitement of finally being at a World Series game, my
first also.
“I watched the game for a while and
then I would watch my father as he was in his favorite element of being at a
ball game, but this time in a Major League ballpark at the World Series.
He never quit smiling the whole game, even as the Rockies were losing.
“And about every three innings he
would say quietly, ‘I can’t believe I’m at the World Series!’ Dad passed away
in 2009 but not before he told everyone in Greybull and anywhere else he went
about going to the World Series. I miss that great sports fan!”
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