subject: The Colorado Rockies Tickets : The Rockies Won The National League [print this page] The Colorado Rockies are a Major League Baseball team based in Denver, Colorado. Established in 1991, they started play in 1993 and are in the West Division of the National League. The team is named after the Rocky Mountains, which pass through Colorado, just west of Denver. The Rockies play their home games at Coors Field in downtown Denver.
Following multiple losing seasons, the Rockies won the National League pennant for the first time in franchise history during the 2007 season.
After previous failed attempts to bring the Major League Baseball to Colorado (most notably the Pittsburgh Pirates nearly relocating to Denver following the Pittsburgh drug trials in 1985), by the late 1980s a team seemed to be a possibility in Denver.
The Colorado Baseball Commission, led by banking executive Larry Varnell, was successful in getting Denver voters to approve a 0.1 percent sales tax to help finance a new baseball stadium. Also, an advisory committee was formed in 1990 by then-Governor of Colorado Roy Romer to recruit an ownership group. The group selected was led by John Antonucci, an Ohio beverage distributor, and Michael I.
Monus, the head of the Phar-Mor drugstore chain. Local and regional companies such as Erie Lake, Hensel Phelps Construction, KOA Radio, and the Rocky Mountain News rounded out the group. On July 5, 1991, the National League approved Denver and Miami, Florida, as the sites for two expansion teams to begin play in 1993.
The Rockies joined the National League in 1993, along with the Southern Florida franchise, the Florida Marlins. The Rockies' first pick in the expansion draft was pitcher David Nied from the Atlanta Braves organization. Nied pitched 4 seasons for the Rockies.
The first game in Rockies history was played on April 5, 1993, against the New York Mets at Shea Stadium. David Nied was the starting pitcher in a game the Rockies lost, 3/0. The franchise's first home game at Mile High Stadium, and first win in franchise history, came four days later with an 11/4 win over the Montreal Expos.
One of the most memorable plays in the game, and in team history, occurred in the bottom of the first inning when 2nd baseman, Eric Young of the Rockies hit a leadoff home run. The game was played before more than 80,000 fans, to date the largest crowd to see a single regular-season Major League Baseball game.
As is the case with many expansion teams, the Rockies struggled in their first year. During one stretch in May, the team went 2/17. The team did not experience its first winning month until September, when they went 17/9. Still, the team finished the season with 67 wins, setting a record for a National League expansion franchise. In addition, despite the losses, the club saw a home attendance of 4,483,350 for the season, setting a Major League record that still stands. Rockies first baseman Andres Galarraga won the batting title after hitting .
370 for the season after Manager Don Baylor persuaded Galarraga to change from a standard batting stance into an open one in which he squarely faced the pitcher, allowing him to see incoming pitches properly.
The Rockies were broken up after the 1997 season when an aging Galarraga signed with the Atlanta Braves as a free agent. His replacement was Todd Helton, who had been the club's first-round draft pick in 1995 out of the University of Tennessee. After a 4/1 start, the club lost its next eight games and struggled to a 77/85 record, finishing only ahead of the expansion Arizona Diamondbacks in the NL West.
Pitcher Darryl Kile, signed as a free agent in the offseason, struggled in Colorado, going 13/17 with a 5.20 ERA a far cry from his numbers the prior year as a member of the Houston Astros, when he went 19/7 with a 2.57 ERA. Kile would become one of a long line of free-agent pitchers who struggled after signing with the Rockies. The team's struggles led to the firing of manager Don Baylor, the only manager in franchise history, following the season.
Jim Leyland, a two-time NL Manager of the Year who had won the World Series with the Florida Marlins two years earlier, was expected to bring the Rockies back into contention in 1999.
Instead, the Rockies dropped even further, finishing 72/90 and in last place in the West as the Diamondbacks won the division in just their second year of existence. Helton was blossoming into a young developed hitter, batting .320 with 35 homers and 113 RBI; Castilla, Walker, and Bichette also hit more than 30 homers each.
Once again, though, the team's pitching was a glaring weakness, as the staff had an ERA of 6.02. Kile, who was being paid over $8 million for the season, struggled mightily, going 8/13 with a 6.61 ERA, and he wound up being traded to the St.
Louis Cardinals following the season. Interestingly, Kile would go on to finish fifth in voting for the Cy Young Award the following year, as he had in 1997 (the year before he joined the Rockies). The Leyland era lasted just one year, as a frustrated Leyland retired following the season, not to manage in the majors again until 2006, when he won an AL Pennant with the Detroit Tigers.
On April 4, 1999, the Rockies made history as they played their Opening Day game against the defending National League champion San Diego Padres at Estadio de Beisbol Monterrey in Monterrey, Mexico marking the first time Major League Baseball opened the regular season outside the United States or Canada. Colorado beat San Diego, 8/2, in front of a crowd of 27,104 people. Only a little over 2 weeks later, the Columbine High School massacre postponed a home game with the Montreal Expos (it was made up as part of a doubleheader in August).
