Rockies In The Outfield

by Dan McKeever

    God is with the Colorado Rockies. There's no other way to explain it. Have you SEEN this team? Let me be perfectly clear about this: there are Higher Powers at work here. This Rockies team just can not lose. Granted, they're a young, spunky, and very gifted squad, so maybe God only played a partial role in their recent invincibility. They're also team that nobody saw coming because a) they have a tiny payroll, and b) they play in the NL West. For East Coast/ Midwestern viewers such as myself, this means that I've seen about as many Rockies games as I have WNBA games. 

    That was, until they became instant contenders for the Fausto Carmona Memorial "Wake Up One Day About 600 Times Better" Award, and you couldn't get away from coverage of those pesky Rocks. There are a number of explanations for this:

-Enough 7-year-old Colorado fans got together and prayed really hard that the Rockies would finally win the World Series for their dying grandfathers, who had been waiting their whole lives to see Colorado bring home the Commissioner's Trophy. I would imagine, however, that God would have seen through this ruse, and picked up on the fact that the Rockies have only been around sine 1993.

-Large-noggined manager Clint Hurdle passed around some of Michael's Secret Stuff before a key game down the stretch. A bunch of nobodies (Yorvit "Don't Smell Very Good" Torrealba, "Didn't You Used to Be" Kaz Matsui, Brad Hawpe on Pop, and Bill Murray) suddenly became unstoppable. By the way, I just saw a "Caution: Kaz-Mat" sign being waved in the crowd at Game 4. We're sure this is America, 2007, and not Japan, 2002? God is clearly involved somehow- SINCE WHEN HAS KAZ EFFING MATSUI HAD DIE HARD FANS? 

-There was a kind of baseball butterfly effect, where the breeze created by the Mets' folding like a lawn chair on the East coast propelled more balls through the thin air at Coors Field. I'd say it was implausible, but Omar Minaya just offered Ashton Kutcher 3 years, $45 million to close.

-This is my favorite: A modern-era Angels In The Outfield story, where one of Travis Henry's Denver-area children asks his father (whom he shares with eight other known half-siblings) when he's coming back home. His cynical response is, of course, "when the Rockies win the pennant." Frowning upon Henry's wild-oats sowing, God decides to teach the Broncos RB a lesson by sending Christopher Lloyd (having recently knocked the acting rust off in DirecTV commericals) to carry the Rockies all the way through "Rocktober." JUMP

Signs to look for to prove this theory (my roommate Casto and I have been playing the roles of Roger and J.P. throughout this saga, looking for every possible shred of evidence that God is helping the Rockies):

-Kaz Matsui (one of the lightest hitters on the team) getting a back massage from an apparently invisible pair of hands just before hitting his unlikely grand slam in Game 2 of the Phils series. 

-Any and all comments made by catcher Yorvit Torrealba in reference to a third chili dog he ate before the game in which he hit the winning 3-run homer.

-The ball taking extremely improbable bounces with two outs to foil infielders and give the Rockies second chances. Oh, wait, that already happened in Game 4...

-Centerfielder Willy Tavares flying an extra ten feet through the air to catch a key fly ball, as if supported by an invisible helper. Dammit, that already happened too!

-Those commericals where Dane Cook salivates over the Diamondbacks. The Rockies winning the NLCS could be the first sign that Dane's idiotic commericals have incurred the wrath of a vengeful God. If Dane is killed by a moving car in front of a group of onlookers in a superme twist of stand-up based irony, I will have proof positive that God loves the Rockies. 

(Wait a minute...God...Diamondbacks...banishing evil snakes...Garden of Eden...I'm freakin' out, man.)

-Matt Holliday's questionable home-plate slide that won the one-game playoff with San Diego. Not only did he appear to have a little extra push on the slide, but he also looked like he phased through Barrett's foot to "cross" home. His chin also healed awfully fast for a guy who apparently attended the Trent Green "HeadFirst" School of Full Contact, don't you think?

-The fact that D-Backs starter Micah Owings looks exactly like that kid from Not Another Teen Movie. This really has nothing to do with the Rockies' divine intervention, but I'm in conspiracy mode right now. Let me be.

separated at birth?