We Earned a Banner for the Outfield Wall

The Rockies are going to the World Series.

Say that ten times.

It's just as sweet the tenth time as it was the first, isn't it?

Sign that Pennant Fever has, in fact, reached epidemic proportions: my wife logging onto mlb.com to check out stats.

It was only fitting that Tulowitski and Helton were the bookends for the play that clinched the series for us, sending 50,213 into a collective celebration this town hasn't seen since, well, maybe never. Tulo and Helton are the heart and soul of this team, each gladly alternating between heart or soul when necessary. One, young and naive enough to not realize that rookies aren't supposed to do what he does. The other, a classic veteran, for years content with simply playing hard in order to show the youngsters how it's done. Now they both get to play for baseball's ultimate prize, together.

Sign that Pennant Fever has, in fact, reached epidemic proportions: thousands of people in Denver who didn't know what a pennant was a week ago, do now.

Jayson Stark's column gives me goose bumps every time I read it. The reality of this whole thing is just too difficult to comprehend. What they did is incredible. How they did it is already legendary. Seldom does something achieve legendary status so soon afterwards, but, without a doubt, this is the stuff that legends are made of.

One of the most impressive tidbits during the celebration last night was that, to a man, the Rockies' players claimed that they have "unfinished business". Getting to the World Series is certainly worth celebrating, but it wasn't their goal. Their goal is, and always has been, to win it.

Sign that Pennant Fever has, in fact, reached epidemic proportions: Seth Smith is a household name.

One of the best things about this amazing run is witnessing the release of all Helton's frustrations that have piled up over the years. While being interviewed last night, Helton said,

I'm experiencing emotions I didn't even know I had.

This is a man we rarely see get emotional. We've experienced more emotion from him in the last month than probably the rest of his career put together. It's wonderful to see.

Mr. Byrnes, paging Mr. Byrnes. His mouth made it onto the flight from Phoenix, but apparently nothing else did.

Sign that Pennant Fever has, in fact, reached epidemic proportions: Brandon Marshall announced he will buy as many World Series tickets he can get and distribute them to Broncos' season ticket holders.

Four to go.

Until next time, Go Rockies!

Groundhog Day

It seems like we've seen this before. Troy Tulowitski hits a home run late in the game to give the rockies the lead only to see Brian Fuentes blow the game, leading the rockies to defeat. We have, actually. Three times in the last seven games. How bizarre is this? I mean, to have the same hero only to have the same goat three times in a period of seven days is almost unimaginable. Last night seemed like everything would be back to normal again as Fuentes retired the first two batters in the eleventh. Mr. 3000 for the night, Craig Biggio, hustled out an infield hit to keep the Astros' hopes alive. They say baseball is a game of inches and it wasn't more than a couple of inches by which Hunter Pence's groundball got under Fuentes glove to scoot through the infield for one of the strangest doubles you'll see. At this point I had a bad feeling. I won't go into the rest of the story because, quite honestly, it's a little difficult to even think about. I may need to devise a "cognitive coping strategy" in the near future. It would seem that the confidence that was high has to be at an almost season-low. I don't want to talk about this anymore.

Until next time, go rockies!