The Rockies must subscribe to the “Love means never having to say you’re sorry” supposition.
Millions of Rockies fanatics (faithful or fresh) loved the team before, during and even after the World Series, so the Rockies don’t believe they have to apologize.
And I’m not talking about the so-called Kid Rox players. They did not shame themselves and their followers in a 4-0 Series defeat to the dominant Red Sox. They played proud and acted humble.
But I am talking about the self-righteous Skid Rox – the owners, the club president and his (off-field) vice presidents and lackeys.
At today’s downtown assembly in support of the team, the owners and the top management should declare publicly: “We’re so sorry.”
They should be remorseful. They are sorry in another way, as in pitiful.
Will the Rockies try to sell tickets to the rally today – online? No, but they are selling tickets – online, no less – for next season.
Welcome to the World Series, Denver, and welcome to the Rockies Amateur Hour.
Please, please do not let the Rockies have anything to do with the planning of or preparation for the Democratic National Convention. This city already has taken the all-time major-league hit for stupidity.
The Rockies’ leaders (ha!) had more days (11) than any other franchise in baseball history to get ready for a home World Series game. Nevertheless, they screwed it up abysmally.
Manager Clint Hurdle said repeatedly the Rockies were a “no-excuses ballclub.” But those running (and running away from) the franchise could offer only a lame “dog ate our Web server and everything else” excuse.
Add to the ticket fiasco (which we shall return to) the difference between the owner of the Red Sox and the co-owner of the Dread Rox.
Immediately after the final game in Denver, Boston owner John Henry, who is not a steel-driving man, generously praised the Rockies and their organization.
Inside the same ballpark the co-owner of the Rockies was telling Jim Armstrong of The Post: “I think this team is better than Boston. … You give us 10 games against them, we’ll beat them six.”
It was not a best six-of-10 World Series, and the Rockies couldn’t have beaten the Red Sox in a best-of-107 Series.
Stay classy, Charlie.
He went on: “I gave a little spiel (to the players). I said, ‘You know, you brought the Rockies back to credibility.’ They’ve brought credibility back to the franchise, not that we ever lost it.”
How could the players bring back credibility if the franchise never lost credibility? That seems to be a contradiction.
The franchise lost 2,000 pounds of credibility and millions of loyalists over a decade.
The Rockies are committed to keeping the young players together, the co-owner told Armstrong. “It won’t be that difficult, because the fan support is there.”
The fan support was completely there when Denver was No. 1 in baseball annually in attendance. They gave up, but it’s not as if they suddenly lined up.
Oops, they couldn’t line up.
The Rockies’ players brought back the fans; the Rockies’ brass treated them like beef in a Greeley meat-packing plant.
A classic case of chaos
Back to the ticket fiasco.
Many people outside the organization told the Rockies they were going about the World Series ticket distribution all wrong. I was one who suggested, days before the chaotic mess began, an alternative method, and I’m a computer illiterate and professional idiot.
I asked a high-ranking major-league official if Major League Baseball had suggested the Rockies follow the pattern of other teams who had reached the World Series. “Of course we did. They didn’t listen.”
In Boston, after Game 1, a long line wound around Fenway Park. There were small tents and people laughing and partying. It looked like fun.
A ticket lottery, used successfully before, was recommended, but the Rockies rejected the sensible concept. The Rockies originally announced that tickets would be sold at the park and their retail stores. But they abruptly decided to go with a fail-sure system that computer experts all over the country said was a train wreck waiting to happen.
Train wreck and stuff happened.
They employed a company that had troubles selling tickets online in the past. For some unfathomable reason, nobody thought that maybe there would be more than 8 million hits to for tickets, from, as I predicted, ticket scalpers, Red Sox Nation and numerous other nations around the world.
The system broke down, and neither the owners or the president or the vice president of ticket sales came out to apologize to hundreds of upset (and some unruly) fans. They trotted out the poor old public relations director, who was like Bambi and the Rockies player staring into spotlights.
And he gave everybody an attitude.
Hey, it’s not our fault. He read a statement. The problem, the team president, obviously hiding in the park behind locked doors, claimed was the result of an “external, malicious attack.” Ticket terrorists? There was a curt, written apology.
Eventually, thousands upon thousands of tickets ended up in the hands of scalpers, travel agencies in Boston and, as I had predicted, computer geeks in New Jersey basements. And most of those tickets landed on ticket-scalping sites and eBay. If most of those Rockies supporters the co-owner talked about wanted tickets (and weren’t his friends), they had to ante up big time.
I know. A ticket for one special young teenager who wanted so badly to see his Rockies and another for his companion cost $1,525.
Of course, two Red Sox fans walked up to the Rockies ticket office at Coors Field hours before Sunday’s game … and bought two tickets to the game. Someone explain and apologize.
It wasn’t right that thousands of Red Sox fans were chanting about the Yankees when the game was over, while thousands of Rockies fans sat home.
Disturbing news on deadline
Nice work, Rockies. You didn’t even get the extra money. Out-of-town scalpers who have complicated computer programs to buy tickets got rich.
Then, there was the treatment of the media by the Rockies and that poor old public relations director. Nobody cares about the press, nor should he. But this is to make a point. The media are the messengers to the rest of the country and the world about Denver, its people and its team.
Even though the wireless communications didn’t operate properly during the playoffs in the Coors Field press box, it wasn’t fixed for Game 3. Hundreds of writers were unable to connect to the Internet during the game, and had serious dilemmas filing stories on tight deadlines. The Rockies’ PR staff (and the spokesman on the ticket fiasco) didn’t acknowledge there was anything awry until late in the game – then said all the writers could share two “hard lines” in waves, and why not do the wave?
How do you think the media reacted? Don’t get disturbed when Denver is described as a backward backwater town in the West.
The people of Denver deserved much better.
As I walked out into a quiet, empty LoDo after the Series and after midnight, a man in a Rockies cap said: “I don’t think we’ll see another World Series in our lifetime, and I don’t know that I want to.” Very sad.
The players don’t have to apologize. Their bosses do. If they truly love their fans, they will say, in person, they are sorry.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com
