Coors Field needs an extreme makeover.
On the second day of the second decade of Coors Field, the game was snowed out, which prevented the Rockies and the Marlins from scoring 12 runs, which they had the day before, which was 0.7 runs below the 2004 average. And there is nothing wrong with a dozen runs, except when the other team is scoring nine of them.
In April of 1995, just before Coors Field was launched (literally), I asked general manager Bob Gebhard, “What happens if this doesn’t work?”
“What do you mean? Of course, it will work,” he replied.
“I mean, what if teams score a dozen runs every game?”
“I guess we’ll blow it up and start over again,” Gebhard said sarcastically.
Get the dynamite, Napoleon.
In April of 2005, I asked Tony La Russa, probably the smartest manager in the major leagues, his opinion of the smartest strategy for building a team and playing at Coors Field. He began considering baseball at altitude 30 years ago as a utility infielder with the Denver Bears. La Russa was in the process of changing careers. “My playing days were about over, and I went to work for (Bears and Broncos owner) Gerald Phipps during the offseason and started law school.”
La Russa got his law degree, but became a major-league manager with the Chicago White Sox. He was creative, thinking outside the batter’s box, utilizing computer printouts to analyze pitching-hitting matchups. With the White Sox, the A’s and the Cardinals, he has experimented with batting his pitcher in the eighth spot and even pitching his starters for three innings every three days.
So I asked him about Coors Field, given that a sportswriter in San Francisco recently suggested teams be allowed an additional pitcher on the roster for games played there and on the 10th anniversary.
La Russa hesitated and said, “I don’t know what the solution is.”
The Cardinals will be at Coors Field for a four-game series beginning May 30, and La Russa “will think about it again. But I don’t ever figure it out.”
Nobody else has, either.
In an attempt to buy another few years as the general manager, the current general manager said he believes the solution is youngsters who EVENTUALLY will be good. However, the primary owner said the Rockies would win the division this year. Then, when the magic number for elimination was brought up 15 games into the season, the owner said he had been kidding. He watches every home game and still doesn’t know. And those seamheads at other newspapers act as if there is no problem.
A Denver man who e-mailed me last week said he e-mailed 10 years ago with the solution: a high-altitude ball, similar to the concept used in tennis. Ex-Rockies manager Don Baylor also thought a Mile High Ball would help. Except it won’t work. Developing a 90 percent ball would be so difficult, and the traditions and records of baseball would be affected radically.
The Rockies cannot “celebrate” the 20th anniversary of Coors Field without the memory of one World Series there. Yet it has been stated emphatically the past few days that the Rox will never be in the World Series because of Coors Field and the thin air of Colorado.
It can’t be.
Mike Klis, who is employed by this very newspaper, and I have talked about this dilemma when we share a condo and dinner at spring training.
We both believe the fences should be moved.
In, not out.
The Polo Grounds is gone. Coors Field has the largest acreage of outfield in the majors. Home runs are not the trouble. Bloop singles, doubles in the gap and rattling triples are.
So you reduce the dimensions (from left to right field) of 347, 390, 415, 375 and 350 feet by a lot and raise the outfield walls by a lot.
There is no way to prove the number of runs will be reduced and the home team will be aided, the detractors, the general manager, the owner and even my friend Klis would say.
Wrong.
The Rockies’ management should commission the construction of a series of interlocking, Plexiglas 20- to 30-foot-high outfield wall panels. The project’s costly investment will be well worth it.
I know. You can’t throw the Rockies onto this converted field. I’m not quite that stupid.
When the panels were finished this summer, a series of games would be scheduled at Coors Field. Semi-pro teams could be hired, and the Colorado Sky Sox could move a few home games to Denver.
Several different wall distances and angles would be tried. (I favor keeping the distances down the lines the same and reducing the distances in the gaps and, most certainly, in center.)
The Rockies would position outfielders in various locations (bunching them, bringing them in, playing them near the walls) and have club employees sit in various seats behind the outfield walls to check out the sightlines (and find out if some sections might have to be closed).
If the scores were higher than the norm, or about the same, the Rockies would realize that the size of the outfield is not the problem. Yet, if the scores were lower, the club could consider using the new dimensions for a late-season series involving the Rockies and another club eliminated from the playoffs.
A face-lift is in order for the aging beauty.
Hire a Plexiglas surgeon or carpenter Ty Pennington.
Woody Paige’s column appears in The Post on Sundays. He can be seen daily on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNews on “Cold Pizza,” “1st and 10” and “Around The Horn.” He can be e-mailed at wpaige@denverpost.com.
