Wildcard

Dave and I went to the wildcard, tie breaker Rockies game on Monday night.

If that doesn't mean anything to you, don't feel bad. I was numbered with you only a short week ago. It means the Rockies would go to the playoffs if they won the game. Put another way, they would have their first shot (in a long time) at winning the world series (they had won 13 of the last 14 games to become eligible for the wildcard spot).

I had a lot of questions like this at the game that shocked and appalled Dave. He would give me a stern look in response that said "keep your voice down! the other fans will hear you..."

We opted to ride our bikes to the game to avoid traffic & parking issues. The bike ride was uneventful until a F450 almost ran Dave over a mile from the stadium. Turns out road rage applies not only to Dave's driving, but also to his biking. He biked right up to the window of the truck and started yelling at the driver.

The driver of the truck lowered his window (in what seemed to be slow motion), and started screaming back at Dave. It was one of those "wow - I can see all the veins popping out of his head" moments. I desperately hoped Dave would back down, and said in a mousy voice things like "ha ha ha, ok, let's go Dave. Come on Dave." We had caught the attention of 200 fans crossing the street on the way to the game.

It wasn't that Dave was wrong. But there were other factors at hand. First off this guy had a clear advantage being in his massive truck. (Dave may as well have been on a BMX bike). In addition the guy made some excellent points like:

"I'M A SHERIFF" and "DO YOU WANT A TICKET? KEEP GOING MAN, AND I'LL GIVE YOU A TICKET."

These statements only infuriated Dave further. I was sure this would come to blows, but luckily the light turned green and the truck driver (who noticed our audience) decided not to kill Dave, but instead, speed away. Hallelujah.

After 10 minutes Dave was able to shake off the incident and get into the spirit of the game. 5 fighter jets flew over the field to kick things off, and we scored 3 runs in the first inning! The Rockies were off to a great start. You may be wondering why Dave is wearing head phones. Apparently watching the game wasn't enough. We also had to simultaneously listen to a radio broadcast of the game to ensure we didn't miss a single moment, or piece of commentary. At first I opted just to watch the game but turns out my husband isn't the best conversationalist while watching & listening to the game. So I got out the radio he brought for me and gave it a shot.

I'll admit it was a great combination. At first I felt a little sheepish, but looking around I realized I most likely wouldn't stand out. After all we were standing near this guy:
Actually I soon learned my radio gave me credibility with the rest of the fans. They thought I was hard core. I would go so far as to say, we were minor celebrities. Everyone wanted to ask us questions: "What did they say about this pitcher/batter match up? When was the last padres hit? How many pitches has this guy tossed?" I quickly embraced my stardom as the Rockies fever started to set in.

After an exciting couple of innings I turned to Dave and said "Man this is SO FUN! I wish we could go to more games!" Dave smiled and said "Well Carrie, this is your LUCKY day!" Turns out he bought tickets to ALL the upcoming games (assuming they continue to win) on-line today. He was just waiting for the "right moment" to tell me. Little punk. I'm not going to give you a dollar figure, but let's just say we could have taken a small vacation for the price of all these tickets. He assured me he would "scalp" one set of tickets to pay for the rest...but so far I haven't gotten him to commit to parting with any of them.

Things were neck and neck during the course of the game, and by the 9th inning we were all tied up. The Rockies prevented the Padres from scoring at the top of the 9th, but then didn't score themselves at the bottom of the inning. So the game went into extra innings. A lot of extra innings. Some of the fans started to tire (after all we were pushing 5 hours of hard core cheering and clapping.) Each time some poor old chap would try to sit down for a second a near by fan would scream "GET UP!!!!!!!!!! GET UP!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW CAN YOU BE TOO TIRED TO CHEER? WE HAVE WAITED 12 YEARS FOR THIS! WOULD YOU RATHER WAIT ANOTHER 12 YEARS AND CHEER THEN? GET UP! GET UP YOU LAZY $%*(#*$&!"

Yes things were intense. Another fun moment was when the one padres fan in our section got booed by about 500 people & eventually ejected from our section.

At the top of the 13th inning the tension was palpable and in a devastating few moments the padres scored 2 runs. You could feel panic set it. Even I could feel a headache rise from keeping my muscles so tense, for so long. The Rockies had last bats, but it didn't look promising. They hadn't scored since the 6th inning, and had only one hit in between the 6th and the 13th. Dave had me wear his cap "inside out" for luck (otherwise known as a Rally cap).

Finally the Rockies got a hit!

And then they got another hit.

After two more hits the winning runner slid into home, the catcher trying to tag him out dropped the ball, and the crowd went wild. I hugged several strangers and high fived too many to count. The Rockies were going to the playoffs, winning the game 9-8!

This was the most exciting event I have ever been too. As we biked home Denver was in total pandemonium. Everyone was cheering, yelling, and clapping. When we finally got home Dave whispered in a scratchy voice (he had all but lost it due to excessive yelling) - "lets take some vitamin C, and wash our hands. We touched a lot of strangers tonight."

GO ROCKIES!