First of the Year…Time for Brats and Beer

4/1/11

                              ROCKIES OPENING DAY 2011

 
 

Opening day at Coors Field. I missed it last year because I had to work and this year I was twice as ready to soak in the festivities.My day started out with a 10am breakfast at the 20th Street Cafe with Pete, Robert, Geoff, Mike(not in the picture because he was late), and Douglas.. 
This breakfast is a tradition for Douglas but for the majority of us it was our first time attending. Nothing wrong with starting a big day out with a great breakfast and mine was pretty tasty. Biscuts and Gravy with a side of hash browns..Mmmm. 

     Douglas mentioned this is his 30th consecutive Opening Day..That’s impressive! 

I really like hanging with these guys. We’re all from totally different backgrounds but we click because we’re all baseball freaks in our own special way.

I know it sounds bad but after breakfast Geoff, Pete and I headed over to The Falling Rock Tap House to have a beer and just observe the goings on.

That’s where I bumped into John. I first met John at Kaufman Stadium last year. He was doing the same thing we were just checking stuff out.
These guys were from the Radio Statiion Alice 105.9 and were going around to fans and asking them to fill out a survey. The survey was just a list of potential new names for the Rockies…They said that at the end of the season the Rockis were going to choose a new name and they had a list of ten or so names such as The Trout, The Miners, really stupid names.

They asked me to rank them in the order I liked them and I kind of stood there for a moment and then I said “I can’t rank these they all suck” The guy kept at me to just choose and finally I just told him “Dude I can’t choose any of these”.

        It was then they said where they were from Alice 105.9 and yelled “April Fools”.

                                              Stupid but kinda funny.

 After we finished our beer we wandered some more and I bumped into loooong time Rantic and Rockies employee my friend and fellow MLBLogger Missy.
                                          A closer look at whatever is on their feet. Festive but I don’t think I could Rock ‘em. 
             The Coors Light girls were out in full force letting folks play with their beanbags.

                                   Live broadcasts were a plenty on Blake Street.

                              While wandering we ran into Danny, his wife and Randy.                                        ROOT SPORTS was everywhere  
We joked and said if this guy was the man he would have had a ticket already. We later saw him inside Coors field.

                                 Apparently he is Da Man, totally my bad.

Batting practice was a bust for me. I managed to get some play but the 1/4 inch I lost in height from my back surgery was the key factor in missing two balls by that exact amount.

                                              That’s my story anyway

                                Here are a few shots of the Rockies pre-game.

                          Ladies and Gentlemen…The 2011 Coors Field Hosers.

           Tulo and Cargo were presented their Golden Glove and Silver Slugger awards.

 

                                     

                                        They were posing so what the hey?

                               The Captain do’n his part to help quench thirst.

 Tulo had a couple chances to really come through but ended the day with the same batting average as he started, .000.

                                            The Duece had a Goose.

                  Helton was looking good. I hope that’s a sign of things to come.

                                                     The entire concourse was packed, seriously packed.

      Rockies lost their home opener 7-6 in 11 innings. That’s all I’ve got to say about that.

                   Here’s Mike and I post game doing our thing in the background.

A while back I mentioned in an entry that I heard a rumor that Bud Selig would be at the opening of Salt River Fields at Talking Stick. I believe I mentioned I though his autograph would be a cool one to add to the collection.

Tom Helmer wrote me a few days later and told me he could get me Selig’s autograph. Apparently The Cowboy and Bud Selig are good friends. So when ran into Tom in Scottsdale I gave him a new baseball just in case.

I kind of forgot about it until a couple of days before Opening Day at Coors Field. Tom sent me an email and said that Ringolsby got Selig to sign the ball for me and he would give it to me on Opening day.

                                                        Well he did.
 I just want to give a huge thanks to Tom Helmer and Tracy Ringolsby for doing this for me and for being extremely cool to the Rantics. 

                                 ROOT SPORTS…We’ve got your back.

After the game Douglas, Robert, Mike, Pete and I headed over to a jam packed Blake Street Tavern to wind down and reflect on the Rockies loss

                                        That’s where we ran into Mr Checkers. 

                                             I’m “D” The Rockpile Ranter.

                       Black or white, me and the boys did Opening Day right…”D”