Colorado Rockies news and links for Wednesday, October 9, 2024
Baseball has always held a special place in my dad’s heart. Growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s on the family farm in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado, he would eagerly look forward to each Saturday afternoon when he and my grandfather would sit down to watch the game of the week on television. He enjoyed watching the Oakland A’s and the Pittsburgh Pirates and fell in love with the Cincinnati Reds where his favorite player Johnny Bench and the rest of Big Red Machine took prominence in the ’70s. For him, it was always an escape from the rigors of farm life, a sweet oasis to look forward to each week.
In 2024, baseball ended up serving in that same role, but for a different purpose.
Back in May, my father, David Timmins, came down with a sickness that we initially believed just to be a generic virus of some kind. However, he didn’t seem to be getting better and so after what was supposed to be a quick check-up at the doctor’s office resulted in a week-long hospital stay and the start of a life-changing challenge for him and my family.
Diagnosed with severe cirrhosis of the liver due to non-alcoholic fatty liver disease he stayed a whole week in the hospital at the end of May. Each day I would drive my mother out to see him and hope for answers about how to help him get better. As he got out of the hospital and the neverending cycle of medical appointments started over the next couple of months, it became evident that a liver transplant would be advised should he prove eligible. Unfortunately, those hopes were dashed in September as the one word that no one wants to hear reared its ugly head; cancer.
Through the process of trying to see if he would be eligible for a transplant, cancerous lesions were discovered on the liver. One battle morphed into another as he now explores treatment options to keep fighting. It’s honestly been difficult for the family with many tears having been shed as worries and stresses of the unknown weigh on our shoulders. It became a chore at times to sit down and write an article each week, knowing there were more pressing matters at hand.
But that is where the Colorado Rockies come into play.
During that initial stay in the hospital, as I anxiously sat in the weighting room for seven hours after he had been admitted into the emergency room, I pulled up the Rockies game on my phone. I sat there watching a game that I don’t remember the outcome but it was a nice distraction from the situation at hand.
Once my father had been placed in a room at the hospital, we immediately checked to see if he could watch the Rockies on the television. Unfortunately, the DirecTV didn’t feature the sports packages so what did he do? He got a free seven-day trial of Rockies.TV (even though I already had a subscription he could use) so he could watch the games on his phone. The nurses then had to tell him to not hold his phone so close to his chest because it was messing with the heart monitor.
Once he got home, the Rockies became part of the daily routine. Unable to return to work and confined to the house it was clear he was bored all day, but the light at the end of the tunnel was the Rockies game each night.
“It gave me something to look forward to.” he said.
Skyler Timmins
Each night, win or lose, my dad watched the Rockies. Sometimes we would sit at watch them together, or I would be watching them in the other room as I worked away on the computer writing articles and doing podcasts. We would always convene the next day, talking about the game and lamenting the status of the team and the performance of the players. We’d argue about what the team should do to get better and what players should or shouldn’t be playing. Even now as the playoffs rage we gear those conversations to the current teams playing.
We were able to watch Todd Helton’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony on television, shedding tears of joy as one of our favorite players got his due. We cheered and jeered through the highs and mostly lows of the 101-loss Rockies and will likely lament the proceedings of the team through the offseason.
The past five or so months have put things in plenty of perspective. In the grand scheme of things the Rockies aren’t that important and yet at the same time they are. Baseball is engrained in our souls, an obsession that can never be satisfied. While sitting in a hotel in Aurora after a doctor’s appointment, I connected my laptop and HDMI cable to the TV for the specific purpose of watching the Rockies game because we knew the hotel likely wouldn’t have it available. If we happen to be driving while the game is on, we listen on the radio. If we are in a situation where we can’t watch or listen to the game, we watch the gameday info on our phones.
At its core, the game of baseball is a simple distraction of entertainment. However, it does hold the power to become bigger than that. In some instances, the game or its players can serve as inspiration.
For my dad, it was watching Charlie Blackmon play his last few games with the Rockies.
“He inspired me to keep fighting to the end,” he said, “the way [Charlie] played the game hard until he retired.”
Photo by Matthew Stockman/Getty Images
When I see my dad watching baseball now, I see that little farm boy who found so much joy in that simple game. It reminds me of all the times he sat behind home plate watching me play growing up. It reminds me of the games we’ve experienced at Coors Field, including the Larry Walker Hall of Fame celebration in 2021 and a D.J. LeMahieu walk-off home run in 2018 against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The beauty of baseball is that it is a sweet respite from the tragedies and unfairness of the curveballs life throws at us. For nearly three hours each night, we could forget about the worries of health and medical jargon and focus on the Rockies. We could pour our anger, frustrations, and lamentations into the team hoping that tomorrow would be a better day. We could lose ourselves in a world where everything makes sense.
I hope that one day soon my Dad will be able to ring that bell of victory over his struggles and that the Rockies will be able to do likewise. He has been a fan since the beginning and there is nothing more that I would love than for his fandom to be validated by the Rockies finding a way to win.
This game means so much and the Rockies, as bad as they were, provided a service that was needed. In an ocean of gloom, they stood as the lighthouse beacon on shore giving the assurance there was something in the fog to look forward to, and it has helped keep my dad pushing forward.
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Rockies extend Bud Black for ninth season as manager | Purple Row
The Rockies announced yesterday that Bud Black would be returning as the manager for 2025.
Affected by Altitude Episode 133: …Now What? | Rocky Mountain Rooftop
This week, Evan Lang and I talked about Black’s future (before this news dropped on Tuesday), talked about the postseason, and then played a game of drafting former Rockies as a coaching staff.
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Arizona Fall League
Scottsdale Scorpions 9, Salt River Rafters 8
The Salt River Rafters season in the Arizona Fall League turned out to be an exciting one as the two teams combined for 17 runs on 21 hits. For the Rockies, Ryan Ritter went 0-for-3 with two walks, a run scored, and an RBI while serving as the DH. Skyler Messinger started at first base and had an RBI single on the night while Juan Guerrero started in left field and went hitless with a run scored. On the mound, Carlos Torres surrendered three runs on four hits in a 1⁄3 of an inning while Michael Prosecky tossed two scoreless innings with a pair of strikeouts. John Justice rounded out the Rockies’ prospects with a scoreless inning and two strikeouts.
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