The Rockies Rock!
I started my vacation, from work, on Saturday, June 7th. I say “from work” because this was going to be anything but a vacation. We are painting our house. The outside. The part of the house that defends me against the rain, snow, and high UV Colorado sunshine. The part of the house that needs regular maintenance and a coat of paint every decade or so. Oops. It’s been fifteen year since we last painted and it shows. On the “This Sucks” scale, painting the house is below Root Canal. It is below cleaning up after the toilet overflows. It is even below IRS audit (unless you have been a reallllly bad boy). It is above Death, but until you reach the point where all the prep work is done, you are not positive of that. On Saturday, June 7th, all of the prep work was definitely not done.
I had worked on prepping the house all day on the previous two weekends, and for at least 1 ½ hours each day after work for the past two weeks.
Then on Monday when I expected to start, we had to spend the whole morning deciding on and getting a different paint color.
Oh, and did I mention that after we finally got started on Monday, a City vehicle pulled up in front of my house. I was thinking “What, do I need a building permit to paint” I should have been so lucky. The man gets out of his truck, introduces himself and tells me that they have a report of high water usage at this address and need to check for leaks.
Now why did I just spend four paragraphs telling you all of this? Because the only thing that kept me from throwing everything into the air, pounding a “For Sale” sign into the ground, and drinking the stock price of Adolph Coors up a buck a share, was that I had secured prime seats for the Colorado Rockies game on Wednesday. Now these were not the best seats in the house. But, it would be hard to live on the difference.
Game time was at 
We had had a late lunch, so neither of us were hungry yet, so we skipped the concessions and went right to our seats. As expected we were stopped and asked to show our tickets. The guys looked at them, gestured behind him, and said “Right that way, a long way down” Just what you want to hear. The day was definitely improving. We got to our seats, right on the aisle, and admired the view.
The ground crew was working on the infield.
It wasn’t long before it was time for the National Anthem and the first pitch. The 
We did enjoy the game, even with the teenagers sitting across the aisle from us. There was one kid, obviously knowledgeable of the game based on his comments, who thought the height of baseball enjoyment was to heckle almost every home player that came up. That could be forgiven, to a degree, if he had been a Giants fan, but he was wearing a Cubs cap. Figures. My limited experience with Cubs fans is that they have developed the habit of tearing down the opponents, verbally, as they have had such dismal teams to heap praise upon. If your team can’t climb the mountain, trying bring the opponent down. This lasted most of the game. One home town fan finally told him to give it a rest. And wouldn’t you know it, at the end of the inning the verbal abuse he had heaped upon the hometown heroes was rewarded with Giants catcher (Benji Molina) throwing him the ball.
I had my own opportunity with a foul ball, but it went off my fingertips and I couldn’t get my hand wrapped around it. I had planned to bring my glove, which would have insured success, but I couldn’t remember where I had put it. Grrrrrr. But, not matter, I had gotten a ball the last trip to Coors Field, and one can’t be stingy. I didn’t see who ended up with it, but I hope a kid got it. There were plenty around, but the adults both outnumbered and out muscled them.
The game itself went quickly, and in a historic manner. The 
It had been a great diversion and was definitely what I needed to get my mind back to the state that I call normal, but causes eye rolls in my wife. The best part was that I was still on vacation, the house was almost completely done, and I had talked myself into spending a couple of days in the mountains as a reward!
|
|
|||
|
|
|||
|
|
While some seats are definitely better than others, and I have yet to sit in the same seat twice, there is not a bad seat in the house. All seats have a good line of sight and you don’t feel too distant from the action. All though to make that happen in the upper deck, your section sits a severe angle, which is at first a bit weird. It makes you think you are sitting on the edge of a canyon. If you are wondering about the row of purple seats, they make the 5280 foot level. Denver is the Mile High City, after all. All levels are serviced by top notch food vendors, and restrooms are plentiful. The ushers are very friendly and can be counted on to answer any question, and to point you towards whatever service you might need.
The Rockies of the early days could be counted on to put on an aerial show, with balls flying into the outfield seats. But, the installation of a humidor to keep the balls from drying out, has dropped Coors Field to the middle of the pack in homers allowed. But, with the thin atmosphere designers still new they had to do something to prevent the bat boy from regularly hitting the outfield ushers. So they pushed the outfield fences out, making for an expansive outfield. So where as home runs have fallen, balls hit into the outfield can still be an adventure. Doubles and Triples are regular occurrences.
There are plenty of places in the lower downtown area of Denver (LoDo), where Coors Field is located, to eat or drink before a game. Afterwards, on night games, there will be fewer open, but you won’t starve or go thirsty.
Most nights tickets can be readily obtained. Postseason, as will most pro teams is a different story. But, as the Rockies have made it just twice in their 15 year history, that is probably not a concern. The seats in the Rockpile (a centerfield section, separate from the rest of the stadium) go on sale a few hours before game time. So even if a popular out of town team is visiting tickets can be had if you get to the box office then. You can find tickets for any game, outside the stadium. But, be warned selling tickets for more than face value is illegal in Denver. Selling them for any price on Coors Field property is against Rockies policy. So, if you happen to buy one and the cops bust the guy on your transaction. He gets arrested and the cops keep your money and his tickets. That said your risk of getting caught is generally very low.
Parking is generally easy to find, but can be difficult for day games or when a big out of town team is playing. Here is a URL to a website that can explain your options far better than I can: http://denver.citysearch.com/feature/6477.
Would I do it again? Yes, but as I know a few people with some connections, I generally don’t have to pay for a ticket. If I were paying full price? Yes, I would still go. If you can get tickets to Field Level, especially in rows 1-10, your are in for a treat. There is nothing quite like being that close to the game to get you in good mood.
