It’s time to say so long to Coors Field
Jul 30, 2021, 6:02 PM
There’s a number that’s been troubling me lately: 22,570.
It’s roughly half the capacity of Coors Field, which is no insignificant number of people.
It’s also about how many shades of disgusted most Colorado Rockies fans feel after Friday’s MLB trade deadline passed with Trevor Story still on the roster.
Not that there’s something wrong with Story. He’s a fine shortstop and a two-time All-Star … and he’s almost definitely not going to be in purple pinstripes come next spring.
Of course, when Story turns down the Rockies’ qualifying offer this offseason, allowing him to move on as an unrestricted free agent, Colorado will indeed receive a compensatory draft pick.
But as ESPN’s Buster Olney pointed out, it seems as if it’s “value squandered, again,” by the Rockies, who probably could have received some haul of prospects for the slugging shortstop.
Wednesday’s trade of reliever Mychal Givens to the Cincinnati Reds seemed to point to the beginning of the Rockies roster purge, but that wouldn’t be the case.
It was “confusing to executives,” ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote Tuesday, that there was even a “sense Story doesn’t move.”
And now that the deadline has passed with Story, and others like Jon Gray, still in Denver, it even has the star slugger perplexed.
“I’m confused, and I don’t have really anything good to say about the situation and how it unfolded,” Story told Denver Post Rockies beat writer and Fan Insider Patrick Saunders.
That makes two — let’s face it, probably more — of us.
Why is that 22,570 figure so bothersome? It’s the average attendance for the 50 Rockies games at Coors Field this season, which is good enough for fifth best in the Major Leagues.
So, if we can’t say anything nice about the situation at 20th and Blake, maybe we can vote with our wallets.
Let’s say so long to Coors Field until the Rockies can prove they can put the competitive product between the lines that this fanbase deserves.
