Most any baseball fan would tell Alan Cockrell that his announced induction Monday into the Colorado Springs Sports Hall of Fame was the quiet before the storm.
Cockrell will be inducted into the Colorado Springs showcase for his accomplishments with the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, but tonight, as hitting coach of the Rockies, he’ll be at Coors Field to match up against the New York Yankees.
The Rockies were off Monday, allowing Cockrell time to attend the announcement ceremony, but it was back to business as soon as the event was over.
“We’ll go to work on it this afternoon,” said Cockrell, who, along with four other individuals and a high school football state championship team, will be inducted at a banquet Oct. 24. “I’m really happy we have a day off before this series. There’s a lot of stuff to look over.”
Even with the prospects of facing pitchers such as Roger Clemens (a future Hall of Famer) and hot hitters such as Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter, Cockrell wasn’t giving an inch to the Yankees.
“We’re quite capable of playing against the Yankees or anybody else,” Cockrell said. “We had to play against high-profile players in Boston, too, and they did it on the road. We played hard, and we played loose. We have some very talented players. The more they play, the more confident they get.”
Cockrell believes the Rockies’ hitters are becoming better known around baseball as they build success.
“Matt Holliday’s ability to use the entire field and drive the ball out of the park makes him a legitimate threat to possibly win a Triple Crown someday,” Cockrell said. “He’s a young hitter who has learned to use the off-field gap. That seems to me to be the common denominator with all good hitters at the major-league level.”
Cockrell is in the first year of a second term as the Rockies’ hitting coach, but he instructed most of the players on their way up through the farm system.
“Brad Hawpe probably has more power than anyone on our club,” Cockrell said. “He can hit the ball out on the left side and into the upper deck.”
Cockrell made the Pacific Coast League all-star team in 1990 while hitting .330 with 17 home runs and 70 RBIs for the Sky Sox. He played for the Rockies in 1996, getting his first big-league hit off Tom Glavine.
Cockrell is joined in the 2007 class by the late Bob Johnson, whose hockey coaching career included a stint at Colorado College; Anita Moss, who came out of Harrison High School and became the University of Arizona’s first All-American in volleyball in 1983; Brock Strom, one of two Air Force Academy players inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame; Amy Van Dyken, winner of six Olympic gold medals in swimming; and the 1956 Colorado Springs High School football team that won the Class AA Upper (big-school) state championship.
Staff writer Irv Moss can be reached at 303-954-1296 or imoss@denverpost.com.
