The Vine: October 24, 2007
Hi Sars,
Now that my beloved Sox will have to face off against Colorado, I’ve been thinking about how tough it will be for them to play there. It’s started an internal debate about whether or not it’s fair for the league to allow teams to join who will have such crap conditions as their home field. On the one hand, I don’t think a team should be refused if their city and the league can support them, and I don’t know where you’d draw the lines if you were going to try: would you have to start forcing domed stadiums, or standardising the heights of the walls (*cough* Green Monster *cough*), or stuff like that? But on the other hand, while I may not know where the line is, I feel sure that having to keep your baseballs in a humidor is on the wrong side of it. Once the environmental factors start stuffing around with the equipment to that degree, it seems to me that the game is being interfered with, and that’s a problem.
I know that Denver has had a football stadium for years, but that troubles me slightly less, if only because the football season is so much shorter that I feel like the cumulative effect would be diminished. If only a handful of teams have to play there, and only for one game apiece, it seems less of an issue (even though I know that visiting football teams do struggle there). And maybe over time baseball teams will get more used to playing that high up as well. But as you’re a baseball smartie, I was wondering what you thought about the situation.
Cheers,
Now That The Curse Has Been Reversed, What Am I Supposed To Be Yelling?
Dear Let Me Get Back To You When I Can Rhyme “Varitek” And “Overrated,”
…Ohhh yes I did!
Just kidding. Sort of. Dude just bugs me.
I don’t have a problem with visiting teams having to suck it up and deal with Coors Field. Not that I haven’t made fun of the humidor; I’ve done so recently, in fact. But at least they did something to address the problem. I remember listening to an interleague game the Yanks played out there a couple years ago, pre-humidor, and it was like T-ball — every other at bat, someone punched it round-trip, which gets boring, plus the Colorado’s staff ERA was in Avogadro territory. (It would have been anyway, because the team stank then, but still.) The altitude is still an issue for Boston, but the Rockies have to come down to sea level for at least two games, too. They had to do it all year. They went to the desert, they went to the seaside, over the river and through the woods, they had to play a bunch of games in San Francisco with that whole circus going on…that’s baseball. Literally. You have to win on the road. If the Sox can’t, well, they’ve got home-field advantage.
And to that point, Fenway is, in my opinion, at least as great a disadvantage for the Rockies as the thinner air is for the Red Sox. It’s a small park, but it’s wall-to-wall intense, and I don’t think you’ll see very many Rockies hats at the games. Sox hats at Coors Field, for sure. The reverse, I don’t know. It’s got to be one of the most intimidating places in the league for a visiting team.
Really, you could point to any number of inequities. The Rockies had to work out indoors the other night; should the Sox have to do that, so it’s fair? The Rockies had a very long stretch of off time between the NLCS and the World Series, which may affect their mojo or make them rusty; should we sit the Sox for a week, so it’s fair?
Yeah, the Rockies are used to the higher altitude. They’re also used to rolling to victory against NL lineups, and not to take anything away from their accomplishments so far, but the Boston batting order is made of somewhat sterner stuff than the Rockies might be used to. Stuff like Manny. And if Manny isn’t getting enough oxygen to showboat effectively, you know, I’m not going to cry about it…but if the Rockies’ semi-crap regular-season road record is predictive, I’m not going to cry about that, either, because if you want to win the World Series, you’ve got to beat Manny and Papelbon and Beckett and the Monster and all of it.
These guys get paid a lot of money to “cowboy up” for shit like this, and in any case, I don’t think you have anything to worry about; see above. God bless the Rockies, they’ve had a great ride, but from where I sit it’s Sox in 5.
Comments are open if Denver natives would care to strenuously disagree.
Aww, I heart Tek. With the old school flat-top, his binders of statistics, and the I am barely humoring that look he gets whenever anyone starts any shenanigans, he comes across as totally being the dad of the team. Like he has to make sure Papelbon goes to the bathroom before the bus leaves.
I totally support the irrational hatred thing though, I’m another Posada hater, and I have no reasoning for that. He could be really nice for all I know.
It would be difficult for me to care less about baseball (our team is the Rockies?), but I think Abigail must be sarcastic, ‘cos I really can’t see describing either New York or Boston has having “stellar” weather. They are interesting and worthwhile cities, but they are, well, big polluted cities with summer humidity and winter gray (as opposed to medium, less-polluted cities like Denver with over 350 days of sun a year…oh, what awful weather we have). But yeah, every city is difference, and that brings different challenges for every sport. I don’t think Denver’s any better or worse than anywhere else for your average non-outdoor sport.