Curse of Girardi
Another baseball season has passed, and the Rockies’ results were similar to those of the past decade. The Rockies finished last in the division for the fourth time in eight years. It must be the curse of Joe Girardi. Since he left at the end of the 1995 season, the Rockies have lacked leadership and direction.
They have finished no higher than second to last in the division since. The team’s 76 wins this year incredibly marked manager Clint Hurdle’s high-water mark in his five-plus seasons. Clint must go. Girardi won more games in his first season as manager in Florida with a $15 million bunch of no names. But instead of capitalizing on Florida’s folly and reuniting Girardi with his old stomping grounds, this time as manager, management has decided to stick its head in the sand yet again.
It’s time for the three blind mice (the Monfort brothers and Keli McGregor) to wake up and act. Dick Monfort’s comment that he sees “nothing wrong” with the jobs Hurdle and GM Dan O’Dowd have done is ludicrous. It’s time for O’Dowd to do something other than trade for marginal relievers. Ryan Shealy for Jeremy Affeldt? Given Affeldt’s ERA, it might as well have been the Aflac duck we received from the Royals. His interest in center fielder Coco Crisp is mind-boggling. It would be like replacing Cory Sullivan with Cory Sullivan.
Find a real center fielder – now. Trade Todd Helton to make room for Joe Koshansky, much as Helton’s popular predecessor was let go to make room for him. Put together a bullpen than doesn’t carry kerosene in its back pocket. And find a manager who isn’t afraid to win.
But all of this is a pipe dream. Girardi wouldn’t fit in here.
Derek Regensburger, Thornton
Rockies’ Hurdle must go
Manager Clint Hurdle’s own comments in the Oct. 1 Sunday Post edition illustrate his incompetence as a major-league baseball manager.
We lost so many games because a good starting pitcher was taken out in the sixth or seventh and the so-called relief pitcher promptly lost the game. I stopped watching the Rockies last year because of Hurdle and I won’t start again until they get a new manager.
Kenneth E. Eime, Aurora
Embodied best of sports
Steve Konowalchuk didn’t play as many games as the most well-known Avs. But he played with as much heart as any of them. As sports fans we have had the great privilege to see Elway, Roy, Sakic, Sharpe, Issel, English, Davis, Foote and Forsberg here in Denver. True hockey fans know that Konowalchuk might never be as honored as them, but he embodied the best of sports.
David Greenwalt, Parker
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