Purple-clad fans who entered Spanky’s Roadhouse near the University of Denver on Thursday night to watch their beloved Colorado Rockies were greeted with a few surprises.
There was the neon-lit Boston Red Sox jersey on the wall and a poster of Fenway Park. The restaurant serves New England lobster rolls and a “Manny Being Manny” special in honor of Red Sox star Manny Ramirez.
It’s one of about four bars in Denver that are sanctuaries for Red Sox Nation. It’s a place where Boston fans unabashedly display their loyalty to the local team’s World Series nemesis – sometimes getting so excited they up their words as shown by this comment from the bar’s owner:
“We are asphyxiated with the Sox,” Steve Lemonidis said proudly. He wears a Red Sox tattoo with a Roger Clemens signature on his shoulder – secretly because Clemens is now a member of the archenemy New York Yankees.
He doesn’t harbor any animosity to customers who are Rockies fans, as demonstrated by a sign outside his restaurant that says, “Go Rockies.” And he allows his waiters in the restaurant to wear Rockies caps.
But most of his regular customers wear Boston Red Sox caps.
On Thursday night, Jennifer Hammond wore a Colorado Rockies cap as she entered Spanky’s for the first time. She said she had to get out of her house because her husband was intolerable.
“My husband is a Red Sox fan,” Hammond said before realizing she had just entered the domain of ardent Red Sox fans.
Fans wearing red or purple didn’t get overly irritated with one another Thursday night when the other team scored. Part of the reason is that the Red Sox fans say they are normally Rockies fans, until the Colorado team plays the team they grew up loving.
“Us people in Boston are classy people,” said Chuck King, a transplanted Maine resident, who says he became a Red Sox fan three months before he was born when his pregnant mother attended a Red Sox game.
King, who attended a Red Sox game during his honeymoon in September 1967, said such tranquil coexistence wouldn’t be possible in New York City, where fans poured beer on him.
He walked from table to table in Spanky’s on Thursday night asking Rockies fans to make bets with him. The night before, he said he made $120, but there were no takers Thursday.
Doug Homan, a Rockies fan, hopes his team wins, but he said he wasn’t confident enough to make a bet.
“We haven’t earned the right to have arrogance (like the Red Sox fans),” he said. “I’ve got pride. This year, we’re it. We took the National League. But no, I won’t bet. We’re building that tradition, though.”
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
