We sat in the Rock Pile (the cheap bleacher seats way out beyond center field). Usually that's where Elizabeth and I end up, because when we're paying for tickets, that's what we can afford. It gets a little irritating out there for me, though, because the people you're sitting with are often much more interested in starting "the wave" than in what's happening on the field. Or it's a collection of teenagers who would rather flirt and talk about their social lives than notice that David Eckstein and Matt Holiday are really enjoyable players to watch. The highlight came sometime around the 5th inning. There was a guy about three rows below us who had knocked a few back and who was desperately trying to get the Rock Pile fans to help him get the wave to go all the way around the stadium. He would turn and face us and yell, "One! Two! Three! YEEEEEEEAAAAAHH!" as he'd get people going. Then he'd repeat it. Not long into this spectacle, we noticed that his zipper was down. Not just a little bit, but all the way. We laughed for a few minutes as we tried to get his attention to tell him. I guess he just thought we were excited about doing the wave. Eventually my friend Mark was able to point it out to him and he turned red and zipped it up. We all laughed for about 15 minutes.
The really cool part was when the game ended and we were invited out onto the outfield to watch the post-game fireworks. The grass on the field was, I swear, softer and cleaner than our carpet. We laid on the grass and watched the best fireworks show I've ever seen a baseball team put on.
Last year at this time Denver was buzzing about the Rockies because they were in the middle of a huge win streak that would eventually lead to a World Series appearance. This year the Rockies are way out of the playoff race. Still, being a part of the team's last home stand of the season was really fun. When I've been to other baseball games that have fireworks afterwards, it seems that about half of the fans leave before the show. Last night I would guess that 90-95% of the fans stayed right where they were. A baseball crowd watches fireworks the same way they watch a game -- with cheers and applause, rather than the oohs and aahs you usually hear at the 4th of July. Before they started sending fireworks up above the scoreboard, they played an end-of-season tribute on the video screen that was made up of Rockies highlights from the season. It was weird to me how intimate the whole night felt. Last year everyone in town was on the Rockies bandwagon, because they were pulling off a historic run to the playoffs and then the World Series. Last night I got the feeling that the only people in the world who were interested in the Rockies were the few thousand of us sitting there at Coors Field, celebrating the last 6 months with a 3-2 win, a video, and some pretty sweet fireworks.
We're going to the game tonight too, but there won't be fireworks after the game. It should still be fun.
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