The Rockies’ majority owners did not apologize for The Infamous Ticket Snafu, but have raised season-ticket prices by an average of 15 percent.
Under no condition is the former acceptable.
The latter is acceptable under one condition. The additional millions of dollars in found revenue must be used for retention and acquisition of star-caliber players.
In the meantime, longtime season-ticket holders are caught between the Rox and a hard place. They supported the Rockies through thick (mid-September to late October) and thin (more than a decade), and they have to take a big hit.
What are you gonna do – whine and play their game, agree with them and hope they do the right thing, stay home and watch the Rockies on TV, or take up knitting?
It’s the Monforts’ baseball. They can choose to do what they want, although they often forget that the people of the metropolitan area built the ballpark and are their landlords – and should have been provided first call on World Series tickets.
The ticket price increase was to be expected, in the afterglow of the postseason, but I suspect it would have been done, anyway, and already had been planned. All professional teams increase ticket prices.
But the timing of the letter to season-ticket holders stunk, and the Rockies did not announce the decision to the press. It had to be coaxed out of them by The Denver Post’s Troy E. Renck when he heard from distressed fans. The Post placed the news on its website and Page 1; another newspaper, which was later given the story, buried the lead in the back of the sports pages. Kid us not, Rox.
I believe the increase is fair if the Rockies use the money for players’ salaries. (Note: I don’t buy tickets; I receive one press pass annually.)
And, so, Matt Holliday becomes The Poster Player for the Rockies’ spending.
If he eventually is signed to a lengthy contract, all is forgiven. If he ultimately leaves in free agency, nothing would be forgotten.
We just don’t want to hear any of those Woe ‘R Us, small-market gripes from the ownership. The value of the franchise has gone up considerably since its expansion inception. The rich are different from me and you; if they want to invest in sports teams in cities outside New York City, that’s their folly. And the Rockies were not children’s-table-scrap beggars when the club was leading Major League Baseball in attendance, and money was flowing into the owners’ pockets.
The Rockies, as ownership and management and everyone else in the free world asserts, must keep the core group of players together.
That group includes Holliday (who, should be the National League’s MVP, Troy Tulowitzki (who was robbed of the Gold Glove and probably will be robbed of the rookie of the year award), Garrett Atkins (who turned his season around) and the young pitchers.
Kazuo Matsui warrants a significant raise and Yorvit Torrealba a bump and two years.
What to do about Todd Helton? The ownership wanted to trade him (to get out from under his contract), and I wanted him to be traded (so he finally could participate in the postseason). Helton should be here until he retires. He has fulfilled a wish and earned it.
Ten players have filed for free agency. They honestly aren’t in the main core group.
But the Rockies must fill in the blanks – and not on the cheap.
They need starting pitching, as if you didn’t know. An ace and a jack. I still feel that if the Rockies had pursued a quality veteran (read: expensive) pitcher at the trading deadline, they would have been better-positioned for and in the playoffs.
Despite what one owner claims, the Rox were not superior to the Sox, who had superior pitching and veteran experience.
The Rockies also must upgrade center field. Willy Taveras, bless him, cannot bunt his way onto first base every at-bat; he can’t steal second from the trainer’s room, and he is not the solution in the field (albeit he made one incredible and important catch in the playoffs).
The dream center fielder would be Torii Hunter, who hit .287 with 28 home runs and 107 RBIs with Minnesota, was named a Gold Glove recipient and is a class individual, a clubhouse leader and a mentor to young players.
The Rockies won’t sign the free agent because he is 32 and will get approximately $75 million over five seasons, but I can dream. And the season-ticket and single-ticket buyers can dream of postseasons ahead.
When they have to pay more in 2008, they deserve to be repaid.
Woody Paige: 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
