COLORADO ROCKIES

They may not win a lot, but no one can say the Colorado Rockies have been dull. Playing a distinctive "mile high style" of baseball in a pinball machine of a ballpark, they (and their opponents) have been lighting up scoreboards — and pitchers — for more than a decade.

Those who spent years (and in some cases decades) trying to lure a Major League franchise to Denver argued that their city was hungry for Major League Baseball. Their vision became realty when Denver was awarded a franchise in 1991, and their arguments vindicated two years later when the Rockies played their first game in front of over 80,000 fans, the largest opening day crowd in baseball history.

The Rockies won that game over Montreal 11-4, the franchise's first Major League win. They had lost their first two games to the Mets at Shea Stadium, 3-0 on April 5 and 6-1 on April 7, 1993.

In their first two seasons, the Rockies played to over 7.7 million fans at Mile High Stadium. They had fifty-two crowds exceed sixty-thousand and twenty-one times they exceeded seventy-thousand. This was not lost on Rockies ownership which had broken ground on Coors Field in 1991. Originally designed to accommodate forty-three thousand, they quickly redesigned the park to accommodate over fifty thousand before its 1995 opening.

The Rockies won the first game at Coors on April 26, 1995, defeating the Mets 11-9 in an example of "mile high style" of baseball (mile high is not an exaggeration at Coors Field — the 20th row of the upper deck is exactly one mile above sea level).

The "mile high style" of baseball comes courtesy of the thin air at Denver's altitude. According to the Coors Field web site, scientific studies show a baseball hit four-hundred feet in New York (sea level) will travel ten percent farther in Denver, or four-hundred forty feet. The result? A "mile high style" baseball where runs and home runs come cheaply, punch-and-judy hitters become sluggers, no lead is safe, and final scores sound like the teams had field goal kickers instead of batters in their lineups.

The 'mile high style" broke new ground in 1999 when a record three-hundred three homes runs were launched at Coors Field that year and the average score was 8-7.

The Rockies parlayed "mile high style" baseball into four winning seasons. They won as many as eighty-three games (twice), but it was the seventy-seven victory season in the strike-shortened 1995 campaign that earned them the wild card berth under Don Baylor, their only post season appearance to date. They were led by a Dante Bichette career year (forty home runs, one-hundred twenty-eight runs batted in, .340 batting average) and a Larry Walker typical year (thirty-six home runs, one-hundred one runs batted in, .306 batting average).

The Rockies could not solve the Atlanta Braves in the playoffs and have not been to the post-season since. They have been under .500 in six of the last seven seasons, with an 82-80 mark in 2000 the exception.

Their short history has not prevented the Rockies from setting some impressive offensive numbers. They have had three batting champions and three home runs champions in their first dozen years. The franchise record for home runs in a season is jointly held by Walker and Todd Helton at forty-nine and Andres Galarraga holds the RBI mark at one-hundred fifty.

"Mile high style" baseball has taken a heavy toll on the Rockies pitching staff. They have been burned and battered every season, giving up an AN AVERAGE of one-hundred ninety-five home runs per season. Only once has the staff ERA been below 5.00 (4.97 in the 1995 wild card year) and it has been as high as 6.03 in 1999.

Blame the thin air again. It prevents breaking pitches from having their usual bite, essentially limiting pitchers to throwing batting practice during most games.

"Mile high style" baseball has scared away a lot of potential free agent pitching talent - and made those free agents who did sign with Colorado regret it - see Mike Hampton and Denny Neagle.

The "mile high style" may be exciting and the Rockies may wind up setting every offensive record in the books. But it exacts a great toll on pitchers and the teams' overall ability to win. It's a classic case of dying by the same sword they live by.