We would all like to see the Rockies win the World Series. But do you want it as badly as ? Does anybody?
Here’s what makes me wonder how long Denver can keep the most talented player in franchise history: Will this football town ever love baseball half as much as Arenado does?
“I want to win. And I don’t want to be part of a losing team,” Arenado said Tuesday, when reigning champion Houston came to Denver. The Astros own what Arenado wants: real big rings.
In all his 27 years on earth, know the most intense and passionate 3 hours and 54 minutes of Arenado’s baseball life? It was a game he lost 11-8 to Arizona on Oct. 4, 2017. But those 3 hours and 54 minutes were more precious to Arenado than any of his five Gold Gloves or 173 home runs in the major leagues.
“It was the best experience of my life,” said Arenado, even if his playoff experience was painfully short.
“Like four hours,” he said.
But those 3 hours and 54 minutes of playoff baseball changed Arenado forever.
“When you lose for a long time, it kind of just wears you down. But once you get that little taste of winning, like we did last year, it changed my game and it changed my life, in a way, as a baseball player,” Arenado said. “Just having that one taste of the playoffs, you want it again. … You have had that one, little taste of October, and I just want it again and again.”
Don’t get it twisted. When Arenado voiced his frustration during the darkest days of the June swoon, it wasn’t intended as a warning he was already looking to leave Colorado as a free agent in 2019, or even a calculated attempt at leadership by giving slumping teammates a swift kick in the pants.
It was just Nolan being Nolan.
“It was just frustration. I hate losing,” Arenado said. “People were saying, ‘Itap early, itap early’ and I hate hearing that. Thatap not baseball. Every game counts.”
Every game counts way more to Arenado than it does to the patrons at .
“Winning should always be the No. 1 priority in this clubhouse, and if you’re not doing enough to win, we’ve got to make a change,” Arenado said.
Some baseball diehards in Colorado take offense to my long-held belief our boys of summer are viewed as a nice, little way to kill time between the Super Bowl and the first whistle of Broncos training camp. But itap true the local major-league team has never felt much civic pressure to be great.
Thatap not criticism pointed at more than 40,000 spectators who watched the Rockies play the defending world champs, although there was so much orange worn in the stands I thought perhaps the Broncos were holding a workout in LoDo, until I noticed the names on the back on all those orange shirts were Verlander and Altuve rather than Keenum and Miller.
This was a night when everyone was reminded how a real baseball game, with the ballpark buzzing and pitchers dealing, can be so much more compelling theater than a football practice in July. The drama built until it cracked wide open with a wild-and-crazy 10th inning, when the Astros scored six times to win 8-2.
But the real opportunity was lost for Colorado in the bottom of the eighth, when the Rockies had a chance to push across the go-ahead run, but situational hitting failed them. When Arenado popped out to end the inning, stranding a runner on third base, he slammed his batting helmet so hard on the ground I thought it might break. The ground, not the helmet. That’s how much he cares.
When Peyton Manning had a chance to be a free agent, he didn’t go to Arizona or even back home to Tennessee, in no small part because a winning NFL team isn’t as important in those fine places as it is in Colorado.
And in one important regard, Arenado is very much like Manning. Playoff hunger? Itap insatiable.
“It tasted way better than I thought,” Arenado said.
The Los Angeles Dodgers traded for all-star Manny Machado. Will the Rockies be willing to make a truly meaningful move at the trade deadline, one that shows Arenado they’re truly serious about winning the World Series?
He loves this stuff with all his heart. Arenado lives for October baseball dreams.
Be honest, Colorado: Do you?
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