I tried to vote for Matt Holliday on Thursday, but couldn’t.
I am not lying here.
I am offended here.
I was just trying to help the Rockies’ left fielder make the starting lineup for the National League in the All-Star Game. He deserves the honor this season.
I went straight to the website Coloradorockies.com, clicked on the “Vote Now” section and correctly, because I am not a complete idiot, typed in the required information – name (Drow Paige), birthday (6-27-1946), e-mail address (wpaige@denverpost.com), favorite team (Rockies) and other favorite team (Blue Jays) – who’s got two favorite teams? – and received this response:
“We’re sorry. You are ineligible to vote.”
WHAT?
Are you kidding me, Bud? What in the wide world of Major League Baseball is going on?
I can vote for the President. I can vote for a Hickenlooper. I can vote for dogcatcher (I suppose, if one were running, except away from dogs).
I can vote for the Baseball Hall of Fame every year but I can’t vote for the all-star team?
I am not a convicted felon. I am an American citizen. I attend many baseball games. I’m not that bad of a person.
I tried again and again and again – on two different computers and also on the site. “You are not eligible to fill out the form,” the computer screamed repeatedly, and I couldn’t move on unless my cursor clicked the “OK” box.
It’s not OK.
Am I too old? Is it my breath? You don’t like the name “Paige”? (Satchel Paige is a Hall of Famer.) Are those who claim the Rockies as their favorite team such fools that they aren’t allowed to vote? Have the Rockies become nonentities that don’t matter and can’t participate in baseball’s All-Star Game? Did I say something to upset the commissioner? (Yes. He has called me to complain.) Is it because my e-mail address is at, and we are considered by the Rockies’ hierarchy as the mortal enemies, and this is my punishment?
According to “Vote Now” (which sounds like an order, not a request), folks from Japan, China and France can vote. France? The French don’t care about baseball. They care about wines and kissing. But I care for baseball, and I can’t vote?
Well, kiss my bat.
I was planning to write a harmless column about how everybody in Colorado should vote for Holliday and put him in the top three National League outfielders, and this is what happens.
OK. I’ve been banned from the process – for some unknown, unfathomable reason – but you can participate.
Vote early, vote often, vote 25 times on line, vote at the ballpark, vote for Matt Holliday.
If you are eligible.
In the latest announced totals, Holliday jumped from 13th to eighth among outfielders with 358,366 votes. Impressive, but not good enough. He trails the third outfielder, Chicago’s Alfonso Soriano, by 335K, and the polls close one day after my birthday. The first two outfielders are Carlos Beltran, with over a million votes, and Ken Griffey Jr. Holliday definitely will be chosen as a reserve, but he should start.
It’s not as if we, uh, you will be stuffing the ballot boxes for some unworthy scrub. Holliday made the National League team last year (0-for-3).
Holliday is leading the league in hitting (.353). He is first in hits (95), first in total bases (160), fourth in RBIs (48), tied for 13th in home runs (11), ninth in on-base percentage (.392) and third in slugging percentage (.595). He has 24 doubles, four triples and 40 runs. And his OPS (whatever that may be) is a whopping .987.
The 27-year-old Oklahoman has better overall statistics than everybody ahead of him, but he can’t win the popularity contests nationally. He is a nice fellow and has a 3-year-old son, Jackson, who, based on his batting skills in front of the dugout before games, belongs in the All-Star Game, too.
After Holliday collected three hits and an RBI Wednesday in the Rockies’ blowout victory at Boston, teammate Todd Helton said: “People are going to start to notice him.”
People don’t notice Holliday because he plays for the Rockies, the cellophane team of baseball, and he plays in the altitude (they don’t know about the O’Dowidor), and he isn’t hitting 25 home runs and he isn’t accused of taking steroids.
And he’s not higher in the voting because the Rockies don’t draw well at home anymore – because of poor marketing, poor management and poor Monforts – so there are not enough “people” to vote for him. With the Yankees coming to town next week, crowds will be unusually large, but, as in practically all similar cases at Coors Field, the bulk will be cheering for the opposition. Tickets, the Rockies claim, “are going fast,” but apparently not fast enough to sell out, based on a check of ticket availability at their site Thursday.
This is the crucial home stretch to vote for Holliday, and Helton and Kaz Matsui and Troy Tulowitzki.
And cast one extra vote for Holliday because Pariah Paige can’t. OK?
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
