by Tyler Fransen
One of my favorite channels on YouTube is called “Cinemasins,” where the host narrates over a movie and counts a movie’s “sins,” whether it’s a continuity error, poor acting, poor writing, or just being a mediocre movie in general. So, as something of a tribute to one of my favorite creators on YouTube, and as a way of preparing for the 2017 baseball season, I would like to tabulate the sins of the Colorado Rockies. Here we go (cue sin counter):
(0) Major League Baseball in 1993 decided to put expansion franchises in Denver and Miami, saying, “What could go wrong?” thereby jinxing the entire operation.
(1) “The Rocky Mountains are the purple mountain majesties, so naturally our color scheme should be purple, black and white. But we should only wear the purple uniforms on Mondays, even though the purple uniforms make us unique. We cool with that?”
(2) I once got free Rockies tickets at a grocery store because I answered a trivia question correct in the floral department. The tickets themselves were down the first base line, and are sold for 20 bucks.
(3) 2007 will forever be remembered as the year the Rockies went to the World Series and earned the National League equivalent of the participation trophy.
(4) According to Kellyanne Conway, the Blake Street Bombers were also responsible for the Bowling Green Massacre.
(5) Todd Helton has not gone back to the Rockies to fix them from the front office. It worked well for John Elway and the Broncos, but not so much for Joe Sakic and the Avalanche, so we’ll only count it as half a sin.
(5.5) No player for the Rockies has ever won a Cy Young in franchise history. That’s 24 years of Rockies fans complaining about how bad the pitching is.
(6.5) That said, I will remove half a sin for the Rockies garnering 14 Silver Sluggers and seven Gold Glove awards dating back to 1995.
(6) Former Rockie Dexter Fowler got a World Series ring with the Cubs. The Cubs! The only other franchise worse at winning the World Series than the Rockies. Well, and the Mariners, but who cares about the Mariners?
(7) For a stadium named after a beer company, you would think they’d be able to serve beer, and not whatever that watered down garbage is they call beer and sell for eight bucks.
(8) Downtown Denver parking is about as enjoyable as getting a root canal, and it is about as expensive.
(9) That said, a family of four could get first base tickets, hot dogs, drinks and take the $10 bus to the stadium and pay about as much as they would for just one ticket to Disneyland.
(10) As part of a promotion the team gave out thousands of free, polyester Troy Tulowitzki jerseys at the game, and misspelled his last name on every jersey. Yes, it’s a hard name to spell, but that’s what the internet is for!
(11) Dinger is the worst mascot alive and will result in an additional 1,000 sins because he is a grotesque and detestable example for mascots everywhere. For God’s sake, Corky, the Minor League Grand Junction Rockies’ mascot, is better than Dinger.
(1,011) I can’t take ownership seriously when they respond to a disgruntled season ticket holder by saying, “maybe Denver doesn’t deserve a franchise.” I’m adding another 1,000 sins for the Monfort brothers’ mere existence.
(2,011) The Atlanta Falcons went to the Colorado Rockies school of choking away the lead in a big game.
(2,012) Now time for the bonus round! In this round, we add a sin for every time a Rockies fan thinks, “this is our year.” Now multiply that by 24 years and… Oh, we broke the sin counter.
