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The boys of spring are in full swing
By Jeremy Johnson
jjohn308@mscd.edu

Deep in the Arizona desert, a dozen Major League Baseball teams are scurrying and scouting about the Cactus League to fill their regular-season rosters in preparation for the 2007-2008 baseball season.

For the Colorado Rockies – a 14-year-old team that hasn’t had a playoff berth since the strike-shortened 1995 season – the search for an elusive National League pennant seems about as likely as the Chicago Cubs breaking their century-old curse, Barry Bonds winning a Sportsman of the Year award or the MLB association announcing that long-time steroid suspicions have recently been linked to overly healthy servings of Wheaties.

After all, the NL is heavy with star-caliber powerhouses such as the defending World Series champions St. Louis Cardinals, the consistently competitive Houston Astros and the newly miraculous New York Mets. Then there’s the Los Angeles Dodgers, the San Diego Padres (new home of veteran pitching ace Greg Maddux) and, of course, the aforementioned underdog Cubbies.

There’s also the fact that the Rockies haven’t had a winning record since 2000 and have gone over .500 only four times in the history of the franchise. While the parity of the NL West offers any team a chance in any given season, it can also lead to a swamp of mediocrity in which the Rockies always sink to the bottom.

So when a retired real estate agent and Colorado native named Scott suggested to me that the Rockies might have a chance to win the NL pennant this season, I suspected that Scott may have been on a recent drinking binge with Cards coach Tony LaRussa or, perhaps, had recently freebased the hallucinogenic venom of the Sonoran Desert toad common to Arizona.

Heading toward the team’s April 2 regular-season debut, it seems like Rockies manager Clint Hurdle might have been smoking the same toad.

On March 26, Hurdle officially announced the Rockies’ five-man pitching rotation. Despite being led by a decent returning core of Aaron Cook and Jeff Francis, the rest of the rotation’s depth is questionable at best. The backside of the Rockies’ starting five includes previous 18-game loser and off-season acquisition Rodrigo Lopez, rookie Jason Hirsh and hard-hit, perennial pooper Josh Fogg. The three of them combined for a dismal 20 total major league wins last season.

Scott and I watched as Fogg pitched for the meaningless win against the Chicago Cubs on March 20 at Hi Corbett Field. Despite the Rockies’ 4-2 win, it was hard to deny that Fogg benefited greatly from the sea-level atmosphere and the 40 mph winds coming in from the outfield.

Rumors still abound that the desperate Baltimore Orioles are interested in Fogg, and there’s also the possibility that Fogg could lose his starting job at any moment to middle reliever Byung-Hyun Kim or spring-training prospect Ubaldo Jimenez, who was recently sent to the Rockies’ triple-A Colorado Springs squad.

But that’s neither here nor there. I mean, let’s face facts: The Rockies have never been known for their pitching. After all, they’re called the Blake Street Bombers, not the Mile High Hurlers.

And this year looks to be no different. The Rockies have the offensive potential they need to out-slug the competition after acquiring extra firepower such as outfielder Willy Taveras and infielder Kazuo “Baby Godzilla” Matsui.

And if Matsui is the “Baby Godzilla” of baseball, then newly beefed-up first baseman Todd Helton (weighing in at 235 pounds at the onset of spring training) is some sort of Mechagodzilla, and you can expect him to move at about the same speed.

Offensive firepower aside, the Rockies will be lucky to finish in the middle of the NL West, if not at the very bottom. After all, that’s what rocks do: They sink.