Matt Holliday’s name isn’t up there in bright lights, never will be. When you play for the Rockies, the forgotten team with a time zone to match, you settle for your name being atop the National League batting leaders.
Holliday, since you haven’t noticed, is leading the league in hitting (.350) and hits (109) and is tied for third in RBIs (60). And where has it gotten him in the all-star voting? At last look, he was sixth behind Carlos Beltran, Ken Griffey Jr., Alfonso Soriano, Barry Bonds and Andruw Jones, a marked improvement from the No. 14 spot he occupied a month ago.
Where would he rank if the voting were based on sheer production instead of pure popularity? Let’s put it this way: ESPN’s John Kruk recently called Holliday the best outfielder in the league.
“You look at the names, he’s got to be considered to start,” Rockies manager Clint Hurdle said. “He’s across the board a leader in all those categories. I mean, what hasn’t he accomplished on offense in the first half of the season?”
But then, in today’s Major League Baseball, it isn’t so much how you play, but where. And Holliday plays for the Rockies, a team long since downgraded – by its owners, no less – to a small-market afterthought, as if the town, not the team, were the problem.
“He doesn’t play for the Yankees and doesn’t play for the Mets, yada-yada,” said Todd Helton, when asked how Holliday could fly so far under the radar. “That’s the way it is here. Trust me, guys who play the game know who he is.”
The amazing part is that Holliday is, bar none, the lowest-profile star in the game, a virtual stranger in his own town, a poster boy without a poster. Literally.
So, Holliday was asked, ever seen your face on a poster?
“No,” he said. “I checked out those new posters, those Ben Roethlisberger Fathead things, but they don’t have any Rockies players. I’ve already looked that up because I would have bought one for my son.”
So much for posters. Ever seen yourself on a billboard in Denver?
“No. There was one in Tucson last spring. It was cool. All my family was taking pictures of it.”
One billboard. In Tucson. The outback of spring-training destinations. Talk about amping up your Q rating. If Brad Pitt were standing next to him, they would ask, Who’s that guy standing next to Holliday?
So much for billboards. Anybody ever spot you in public and ask for an autograph?
“Occasionally. Maybe at the mall, the occasional kid or somebody, but not much. Not much at all.”
Such is life on a loser, where Rockies players, most notably Holliday, pay the price for years of mismanagement by the front office. They beat the Yankees three straight to move four games over .500 and the first question they get is, “Do you think the fans will ever embrace this team again?”
That’s the way it is, all right. As opposed to the way it should be. Contrary to popular belief, there are compelling reasons to care, to walk through the turnstiles in LoDo, even if the Yankees aren’t in the other dugout. At the top of the list is Holliday, the Rockies’ best player, if not the face of the franchise.
Coors Field isn’t Coors Field anymore, what with the humidor relegating would-be home runs to routine flyouts. So what should they call the place? The Holliday Inn would work, except that the Rockies don’t allow that kind of stuff. You know, promoting their players and other such nonsense.
Holliday, a native of that bustling metropolis, Stillwater, Okla., doesn’t so much accept his low profile as he embraces it.
“I don’t really care, to be honest with you,” he said. “It kind of keeps my life simple. Some of the things that go with a high-profile kind of life, I’m not really into. As long as my teammates feel like I do a good job and prepare and come here to win every day, that’s really the only sort of appreciation I need.”
The irony here is that, while far fewer fans appreciate Holliday compared to the Blake Street Bombers, you could argue that they should appreciate him more than the boys of summers long since passed. Why? Because, with the humidor in the picture, his numbers have more meaning, more relevance, more legitimacy than the ones put up by Dante and the Big Cat.
Of course, you run that notion by Holliday and he shrugs his shoulders and heads off for BP.
“That’s not the reason I play,” he said.
But it is the reason we should watch.
Staff writer Jim Armstrong can be reached at 303-954-1269 or jmarmstrong@denverpost.com.
