Colorado wins 9th straight game…and I almost fight a 6 year old girl

Part Six

DENVER – By the time my brother, Michael, and I overpaid a scalper $20.00 for two tickets, got a delicious beverage and found our seats, the Rockies were already down 0-1 in the 2nd inning. While we may have been a little late to the game, there were still several hundred people milling around the front of the stadium, socializing and have a grand ole time. This is Lower Downtown Denver, just blocks from Union Station and seconds from hip bars and cool clubs, and no one is in a hurry to do anything.

Coors Field, home of the Colorado Rockies since 1995 is, like Denver, very trendy and full of energy. The red brick façade is reminiscent of the newer stadiums built in the past two decades but Coors Field has a few distinct differences. The most prominent is the purple seats in the 20th row of the upper deck, which signifies the city’s mile high elevation point. The other feature I was drawn to is the old style, secondary scoreboard in right field, a manual scoreboard updating scores from across the league. The main scoreboard is a gaudy, huge Jumbo Tron like every other stadium in the majors.

The ushers, concession workers and fans were very friendly, almost too friendly. Michael and I were lost, looking for our seats, which had a face value of $4.00 each, when an usher recommended we sit in the $30.00 seats as long as we didn’t cause any trouble. Perfect! There wouldn’t be any trouble out of us…until I almost fought a six year old girl.

The stadium was about half capacity but the crowd noise and liveliness made me feel like I was watching a playoff game; fans cheering ever base hit and strikeout even when their team was getting hammered for a few innings. They never lost hope and they never stopped letting the Rockies know they were solidly behind them.

Meanwhile, behind me was this kid who would not shut up. She was screaming at the top of her lungs, “Go Rockets,” and she kept kicking me in the back of the head. I wanted to turn around and say, “Hey kid, it’s the Rockies, not the Rockets and please, for the love of Pete, stop yelling in my ear and kicking me!” I know it’s a ballgame and all but the 30th time she “accidentally” kicked me I knew she was egging me on.

I was stuck and the kid knew it. We couldn’t switch seats for fear of having to sit in purgatory, which was a huge step down from the mid-level seats between home plate and first base in which we were squatting. I could have taken her in a second but the usher told us to stay clear of trouble and a fight between a 40 year old man and six year old girl is clearly trouble. The other two options were to rat her out and risk being a fink or simply leave the game an inning early. I’m no rat, so we decided to leave early. Besides, we had an hour drive back to Colorado Springs and it was getting late.

Besides the agitator behind me, the game was fun, most of the fans were great and Coors Field is awesome!

NEXT STOP: 2nd annual Royal Gorge Holy Smoke BBQ Showdown (June 13, 2009)