For years it was acceptable. For years, there when other clubs came to visit Coors Field, it was understandable that fans for the other teams outnumbered Rockies fans. After all, the Rockies were in the middle of an identity crisis for most of those years.
Those days are over.
These are not your father’s Rockies.
With the Chicago Cubs heading into town, there will be an inevitable sea of blue filling the green seats at Coors Field. These fans aren’t your typical visiting fans, however. These fans are loud, they talk trash,and they have a superiority complex, despite the fact that they are arrogantly cheering for a team who hasn’t won a World Series since Theodore Roosevelt lived in the White House.
The excuse for Cubs fans is that through WGN, Chicago’s superstation, they were the only team that baseball fans from Colorado could watch before the Rockies came into existence. The problem with that excuse, however, was that it was only half of the excuse. The other side of the excuse was that they would gladly be Rockies fans if the owners would step up and commit to winning.
Well Cubs fans, welcome to 2011. The Colorado Rockies head into a series with your beloved lovable losers with the best record in baseball. They are 10-2 in the early going, and have a certain swagger about them. They refuse to lose.
In each of the four games in which they swept the Mets, they were down 2-0 before fighting back to take the lead, something that rarely happened in 2010.
Not only do the Rockies have a team that looks like it is serious about making a playoff run, they have a team full of players who aren’t going anywhere for a while.
After signing Troy Tulowitzki and Carlos Gonzalez to long-term deals, the Rockies have shown that they are committed to winning. Long gone are the days of Jose Hernandez starting at shortstop. Long gone are the days of Jeromy Burnitz providing the power for a lackluster, castoff lineup.
These Rockies have started off hot, and no one is calling it a fluke. Finally, everyone in the media is realizing that the Rockies are not just a good little club who can make some noise from time to time. They are realizing that the Rockies might just be a team who can compete with the big boys on the east coast, and with the big-spending Phillies.
Loyalty is a great thing. The fact that these Cubs fans have held on for so long is admirable. However, it is time for Rockies fans to realize that they have everything that they ever asked for in a baseball team, and so much more.
No one could have envisioned this good of a start. No one could have seen the Rockies playing this well on the road. It might just be a hot start, but those watching the Rockies know that there is a difference between this team and the team that took the field in 2010. It is as if there has been a new level of maturity hit in the clubhouse, that the days of being the underdog, and the days of being disrespected are over.
The fact is, this Rockies team is good. They know they are good, and they have a very good chance at contending. It is time for fans to realize that and begin to back their team.
There is no way to keep Cubs fans out of Coors Field over the weekend, however, it is possible for Rockies fans to drown them out and make their presence a moot point.
It is time for Rockies fans to step up and embrace their team.
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