Colorado baseball

I happened to be in Denver last Saturday and found my way to Coors Field:

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It’s a beautiful place.  The Rockies were playing the Mets, and the batters on both teams were having fun: the final score was 12-11 Rockies.  (The Rockies’ home batting average is something like 40 points higher than that of any other team.)

Here are some differences from Fenway Park:

  • I saw a bunch of girls wearing prom dresses — what’s up with that?
  • There were incessant contests between innings — very annoying.
  • The Rockies manager pulled a double switch.  The DH is OK, but figuring out the strategy around pitchers batting is one of the joys of baseball.
  • Fenway Park doesn’t have vegetation in the outfield:

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Here was the scene after a Rockies grand slam:

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There was a bit of a Boston flavor to the game: the Rockies starter was ex-Red Sox Franklin Morales, who was terrible.  And the Mets’ middle reliever was old friend Dice-K Matsuzaka, the most annoying pitcher who ever lived.  Luckily, he didn’t have one of his four-walk, three-strikeout, 40-pitch innings that made you want to swear off baseball forever.  Maybe middle relief is where he belongs.