Today is Major League Baseball’s opening day, the best of all the days, so I figured I’d share my favorite baseball-y story. It was told to me by Cody Wise, the media relations coordinator for the Nuggets who travels with the team on road games and such. Wise is 25, but his first job in sports was at age 20, in 2010. He was a ticket-taker at Coors Field. The next season, he was promoted to field guard, one of the guys in the helmets who sit on the field, right by the stands.
I’ll let Cody tell you the story:
“You get to be on the field during the game, watch batting practice every day, have interaction with the players. It was a pretty cool thing. And I grew up in Colorado, about 1 ½ hours from Denver, watching Rockies baseball on TV, and now you’re on the field, up close and personal.
“My first home stand, they were playing the Dodgers. The night before, I had worked the game and stayed late, I was one of the last people to leave. I shut everything down. The next day, I come in for my morning meeting, before the day game, and my head supervisor says, ‘Do you know where the batter’s box key is?’ And I’m like, ‘What?’ And he says: ‘Yeah, it wasn’t put back last night after you left, and you were the last one to leave, right? Did you put it back?’
“At this point, I’m new on the job, I don’t want to screw up so on the inside, I’m stressing and freaking out that I did something wrong. So he says: ‘Maybe it’s out in the bullpen. That’s where you were, right? Ask the bullpen catcher. Maybe he picked it up.’
“So I’m walking into the outfield by myself, just thinking what did you do with this key?
“I get out there and I ask the guy. He says: ‘You know, I haven’t seen it either. Ask the bullpen coach.’ So I go and ask him, and he hasn’t seen it. ‘I don’t know what to yell ya.’
“I go back to my supervisor. I tell him I have no idea where the batter’s box key is, and they didn’t know either. So my supervisor suggests I ask the equipment manager for the Rockies. I go into the clubhouse, and, sure enough, there’s the equipment manager. He hadn’t seen the key, and I get sent around to four to five people, to the point where I’m in the Rockies’ indoor batting cage. The player Chris Nelson was taking batting practice, and I’m with one of the clubhouse attendants, who says, ‘Guys, by chance have you seen the batter’s box key?’ And Nelson is like: ‘Nah, man. You lost it? How are we supposed to hit out there?’
“Now I’m just freaking out. So they said to go ask Jim Tracy. The manager.
“I come into the dugout, and he’s finishing his pre-game media availability. He’s wrapping it up with reporters, and I walk up in my field-guard attire – purple-collared shirt, tucked in, khaki pants. And I just go: ‘Jim, do you have any idea where the batter’s box key is? They told me to ask you.’
“And he just gives me the biggest smile and says, ‘Son, you just got (bleeping) played.’
“Everyone lost it, and I caught on. It’s an on-going joke in Major League Baseball. The rule is, if someone asks you for the batter’s box key, you always deny and send them to somebody else.
“You know how it is as a kid on the job, for the first couple weeks — you just want to do everything right.
“I’ll definitely hold onto that story forever.”
CHEW ON THIS
• Die-hard Denver Nuggets fans might remember Wise from .
• It’s opening day, and this is .
• It’s bonkers to think that one of these teams — the Dodgers, Giants or Padres — will finish AT BEST in third place this season. about the Padres nabbing baseball’s best closer.
• So this is an enticing headline, from FiveThirtyEight.com: .
• Monday night, of course, is also the NCAA men’s national title game. On Saturday, I slipped into Swanky’s in LoDo, a Wisconsin bar. It felt like Madison’s State Street in there. Great atmosphere, raucous fans. I’m not sure what the official Duke bar is in Denver, but I’m sure there’s a sommelier there.
• Here’s a sobering, albeit fake, article from The Onion: .
• Kate Upton and Justin Verlander from “Step Brothers.”
• And finally, happy birthday, !
Benjamin Hochman: bhochman@denverpost.com or
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