The worst pain in Denver sports runs all the way from the sore back of Rockies first baseman Todd Helton to the sole of Avalanche center Peter Forsberg’s aching feet.
They are this city’s star-crossed heroes, both born in the summer of 1973 and made old before their time by chronic injuries that have betrayed Hall of Fame ability.
The physical struggles of Helton and Forsberg are daunting enough to make any reasonable person wonder:
How thin is the line between bravely stubborn and stubbornly foolish?
As Forsberg skated gingerly off the ice earlier this week, leaving a tiny arena in his native country, looking nothing like the player who scored 116 points for the Avs when they won the NHL championship in 1996, the broken-down pro admitted to the Swedish press, “This wasn’t fun at all.”
From half a world away, you could hear the same uncertainty in Forsberg’s voice that Helton cannot completely conceal when he insists that after four years of trying to ignore obvious back pain, his goal is to again hit so well the Rockies can depend on him.
“That’s the goal. Whether it works out or not, who knows?” Helton said in an interview with The Denver Post. “But you always want to be the guy that you feel like they can’t take out of the lineup. I haven’t been that guy for a while now, but I want to be back to being that guy.”
What hurts for us is the heartbreak in watching Helton and Forsberg suffer to regain athletic magic that might well be gone forever.
With bodies that scream at them to quit, Forsberg and Helton refuse to listen and press on with comebacks at age 35.
It is impossible not to cheer for two of the most popular and talented athletes this town has ever seen.
Both have stood smiling in the center of the frame from postcards collected during the golden age of Denver sports, an amazing 12-year span during which Forsberg twice drank from the Stanley Cup and Helton jumped for joy at the end of the Rockies’ remarkable run to the World Series, to say nothing of the two Super Bowl victory parades we all enjoyed.
Forsberg looked done last season when he squeezed out a few sparks during a brief stint with the Avs, and nothing short of a medical miracle will get him even one more game on NHL ice.
Helton is the eternal grinder, which makes me want to believe he will hammer out game-winning hits this summer, but the number of trips to home plate left in his legs might be so limited that we can begin counting the steps.
With two Olympic gold medals and more than 800 NHL points to his name, Forsberg is a lock to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Despite his .328 career batting average and the gold glove he wore at first base, Helton figures to have a long wait that will probably go begging at the door of Cooperstown, because if you think the Broncos have been disrespected by the arbiters of football immortality, wait until you see how Coors Field statistics are discounted by baseball historians.
Helton and Forsberg have earned the right to decide for themselves when enough’s enough.
The confidence of a superior athlete makes him believe anything’s possible.
Maybe that’s why Forsberg scored three goals in a single period of the Stanley Cup Finals game that made it clear to the Florida Panthers they weren’t winning the championship.
Great athletes never learn the definition of surrender.
Maybe that’s how Helton hit the two-out, two-strike, two-run walk-off home run against Los Angeles Dodgers closer Takashi Saito in September 2007 that became the inspiration for a Rocktober dream.
Helton and Forsberg are blessed with admirable traits, deserving of a happy Hollywood ending.
But anybody else get the queasy feeling we’re seeing two versions of the same sad movie?
Forsberg and Helton don’t know how to quit.
It has served them well.
Until now.
Prolonged agony might be gallant.
But it sure hurts to watch.
Mark Kiszla: 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com
