If These Walls Could Talk: Colorado Rockies: Stories from the Colorado Rockies Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box

~

To Kristi. As I’m fond of saying, I married over my head figuratively and literally.

To Jacob, Zachary, and Gabriel. One of the greatest joys of my life has been sharing our collective love of the game of baseball. I love you all more than words will ever express.

To my dad. Thank you for introducing to me the game that has meant so much in my life. I love you.

—DG

To Angela Hochman, who is my pretty baby and my teammate for life. And to Mason Folz, the toughest dude in Colorado.

—BH

Contents

Foreword by Bud Black

Introduction

1. Game 163, Version 1.0

2. Nolan Arenado and Charlie Blackmon

3. Todd Helton

4. CarGo, Tulo, and Ubaldo

5. Rocktober

6. Larry Walker

7. The Skippers

8. General Managers

9. Dick Monfort

10. The Golden Thong and Other Stories

11. Inside the Clubhouse

12. Inside the Booth

13. My Baseball Life

Acknowledgments

Foreword by Bud Black

The Colorado Rockies are a true regional franchise, and that’s pretty cool stuff. It’s a wide-ranging fanbase—and it’s a beautiful part of the country, which goes without saying. The fans are extremely loyal. You can tell from Opening Day, which means so much to Colorado baseball fans. And in 2007 I was the manager of the San Diego Padres during that playoff push, and what I saw from the Rockies fans was awesome.

And the ballpark! Wow, it’s been 25 years and it still looks like a fresh, new facility. Having watched it during the last couple years, I’m really impressed by the work they do to maintain it, the commitment to ballpark operations, and all the engineers and people who work on the stadium on a daily basis. It’s a tremendous park that’s held up for 25 years, and I suspect it’s gonna hold up for another 25 years. I admire the overall commitment and love that people have for this park, this part of the country, and their sports teams.

What made the Rockies job desirable? From the interview process, the passion I felt from owner Dick Monfort and general manager Jeff Bridich and the front office was really impressive to me. It was desirable because of how they felt about the Rockies, about baseball, about winning, and their goals to win. The entire state of the organization from top to bottom made this a great job.

The ownership grew the front office. And what I saw from afar about their direction and philosophy on a number of things stood out, especially where they were headed with their pitching programs and the present group of position players, as well as the state of their farm system.

I love this game. It’s wonderful for a number of reasons. What I like is that everybody has played baseball at some point. Whether as a young kid, whether it’s at recess at school, whether it’s organized, whether it’s a picnic out front in the driveway, most every boy, girl, man, and woman has played catch, caught a fly ball, fielded a grounder, swung a bat, hit a ball. That’s why I think that everybody can relate to our game.

For me, at this level, I still think that the competitive nature of the hitter versus pitcher is a great battle. And everything that goes into winning baseball—defense, hitting, pitching, base running—is special to me.

Early on as a player, I tried to understand all sides of everybody in this game—from the front office to the media. Everybody has a different perspective and job; it’s truly all of us who make up this game. And it’s everybody working together that makes this the great game it is.

There are people in this game who love it as much as I do.

Even before I was the Rockies manager, I got to know Drew Goodman from watching Rockies telecasts while channel surfing through games, as all baseball people do. I always liked Drew’s style. When I was with the Padres, our teams were in the same division, so even then I grew to appreciate and admire Drew’s work as a broadcaster.

I also know that Drew has a job to do. He has to be honest, fair, and concise about the good and the bad. There are listeners out there who want the story, and I get that. But he does it in a fair way—and I hear it from my family—he pumps us up but lets us know when things aren’t right. It’s a balance and a talent.

I’d get to know Drew at the pressers for the visiting manager and I was very comfortable with his presence, his knowledge, his interaction, and his feel. His understanding of the athlete and the manager and the coach, the total comprehensive feel of what we do, is what stands out. For us in uniform, it’s a cool thing. Drew gets it. And for me, there’s not much of a bigger compliment that I pay to people.

—Rockies manager Bud Black

Introduction

I feel 18 every day I walk into the ballpark. I walk up the stairs to the dugout, take in the perfectly manicured lawn, the immaculate clay of the infield. There will be a game today, and I get to narrate. No two games are identical, and every day there is a possibility we’ll see something we’ve never seen before. I appreciate your nightly invitation into your homes.

We get to share with you the jubilation of a walk-off win, the amazement in Nolan Arenado taking a would-be double and turning it into a ridiculously improbable out, the wicked and torrid flight of a CarGo take a good look, you won’t see it for long homer to the third deck. We also feel the same pain as you, when the team suffers a defeat that feels like a kick to the gut. It is difficult to fully describe what the game of baseball has meant to me—and to my family. It encompasses us.

Since racing off the bus as a six-year-old to see the New York Mets in the 1969 World Series, I’ve always known that I enjoyed the game. It was important to my dad. I was born on Long Island, but we moved to Westchester County, north of the city, when I was seven. Pound Ridge is where I claim that I grew up. I started playing Little League there and eventually graduated from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York, where I excelled in football and baseball. But of the two, I felt my future was tied to baseball. I received a number of accolades on the field in high school and even had a couple of workouts for professional teams (the Cincinnati Reds and Seattle Mariners). That led to the delusional thought that I would one day get an opportunity to get paid to play. I went on to play college ball but ultimately found my way to broadcasting this great game.

One of my grandest life joys has been teaching my kids the game of baseball, playing the game with them, and watching them play. I was the crazy dad who—when each of my three boys reached 18 months—took a plastic bat and put it in their hands from the left side of the plate. They all throw righty but were going to have the advantage of hitting lefty. We threw and hit everywhere we went. When they were really young, my wife, Kristi, would schlep them through airports in matching shirts (in case one strayed from the pack) to come stay with me in whatever city the team was playing. In the mornings we would find a park or a strip of grass somewhere and play catch, field ground balls, or play Wiffle Ball.

When they got older, I would take them in the morning to the clubhouse, and we would hit in the cages on the visiting side before players would arrive. Around the age of nine, they would come out with me and shag balls during early batting practice. That was a big deal. I remember when Jacob caught a long fly off the bat of Matt Holliday. Cool stuff. Unforgettable stuff. We took a trip to Scotland when the boys were six, four, and one. I recall playing Wiffle Ball on a patch of grass adjacent to the harbor in Edinburgh. People were quite a bit curious as to what we were up to.

I was recently sitting on a field in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, sweating in the heat of a mid-August Georgia afternoon. Jacob, my oldest, was with me on this trip, filling in for Doug Marino, our regular stats and research guy. We had just finished having a catch and taking some ground balls. We were just visiting about life, about baseball, about his upcoming semester in Spain. A line from our favorite sports movie, Remember the Titans, popped into my head. Our whole family loves it. Jacob knows virtually every line verbatim. The line I was thinking of so accurately portrays the almost spiritual relationship I have with the game of baseball, though it can be for whatever sport stirs inside someone. Coach Boone, played so well by Denzel Washington, is standing in the fully lit but empty high school football stadium the night before a big game. He says to the character Doc: This is my sanctuary right here…This is always right. It’s just a game, Doc, but I love it.

Ask my kids where my favorite place is, or where their favorite spot is, and they will say in unison: Cooperstown. And Dreams Park is where the best 12-year-olds tournament in the country takes place each week of the summer.

My other favorite spot is sitting on a bucket on the edge of the dugout, coaching. This past year, I was an assistant for the Arapahoe High School varsity. It was one of the most rewarding, emotional, and memorable baseball experiences of my life. My son, Zach, was a senior catcher and captain. The school was ranked 48th in 5A to begin the year…and finished in the final four of the state tournament. I take approximately 10 Rockies games off of the 150 we televise, and they are all strategically done to see as many of my kids’ games as possible. To be a small part of Zach’s senior spring provided me with immeasurable pleasure. And so, to this day, I get very sentimental while I’m jogging on a Rockies road trip and I pass a spot of grass or a park. The memories of those catches with my boys come racing back.

Jacob was a middle infielder who played at Denison University after a strong career at Arapahoe High. He has since transferred back home to the University of Colorado, where he is a 3.9 GPA student in finance and plays with his middle brother, Zach, on a summer collegiate league team. Zach was named to the Rockies Futures game and also honorable mention All-State. He is headed to Webster University in St. Louis to continue his education and baseball career. Our youngest, Gabe, just finished his freshman year by leading Arapahoe’s sophomore team in hitting.

I am obviously proud of their baseball accomplishments but even more so in how they conduct themselves. They are personable, bright kids who look you in the eye when they speak. The vast credit for that lies with Kristi. She has had to wear numerous hats at times when I was traveling. I used to naively say she did about 75 percent. That was selling her short about 24 percent. People will occasionally ask how many games she sees a year, meaning the Rockies games. She will answer: 200 to 250 games a year before the All-Star break. And only a couple are the Rockies! She loves the Rockies, but the boys’ games take precedent. I could not do what I do without her support and the knowledge that our boys, that our house, that our little world is completely handled.

Our baseball conversations and texts have evolved over the years. Initially when I would call in the middle of the game to see how they were doing, the exchange went something like this:

Me: What did he do in his at-bat?

Kris: He is on second.

Me: How did he get there?

Kris: He hit it.

Me: Where?

Kris: I don’t know…Right, I think.

Me: Single or a double?

Kris: Call Hal! (a good family friend of ours whose son was also on the team)

I have coached them in baseball, basketball, and football from the time they were little. Kris, who was an outstanding teacher, coach, and athlete in her own right, would often counsel me on my sideline demeanor: Have you ever seen the look on your face at times? You look like you are ready to kill someone. Ease up, tell them what they have done well, and then introduce how they could have done something a little differently. These are great tidbits of advice, which I believe over time I have adopted, though that face she referenced probably does appear on occasion.

I earn a living doing something I have tremendous passion for. I believe I have been able to pass onto my kids the understanding that whatever you decide to do in life, if you have passion for it, that that in itself makes you successful (and hopefully content).

We have spent a ton of time on fields and courts, our basement, and in our barn, fielding, hitting, hooping, tackling, and having fun. Kristi would take them, especially when they were young, all over America so we could be together as a family. What she did and continues to do, in being the omnipresent parent, has been remarkable. My happiness and knowledge that all was well at home begins and ends with my wife. We are both proud beyond words of how special the boys have turned out to be in virtually every way. Of Kristi’s many great accomplishments, these are her finest.

Editor’s Note: To provide a feel of the Colorado Rockies’ thrilling 2018 playoff season, entries from Drew Goodman’s actual diary from the season are sprinkled throughout this book.

1. Game 163, Version 1.0

The Hall of Fame closer in an All-Star season took the mound with a two-run lead, but in the Colorado dugout Troy Tulowitzki screamed to his teammates: We’re going to kick his ass!

It was the last inning in the last game, a game that wasn’t even on the schedule, a tiebreaker squeezed into this improbable season, as if no one wanted it to end.

To this day, you can go to The Chophouse in LoDo or Don’s Club Tavern on Cap Hill or the Starbucks at Cherry Hills Marketplace and say Game 163, and folks know what you’re talking about. They’ll flash a little smile, you’ll smile, an eavesdropping stranger will smile, and soon the whole place is telling stories about where they were for Game 163—because it’s the greatest game in Rockies history—yes, even better than Game 170.

It was October 1, 2007. The first day of Rocktober. The Rockies hadn’t been to the playoffs since 1995. Todd Helton, wearing a uniform number that would someday be retired, was in his 11th season—and had never played in the postseason. And on September 15, the Rockies were just 76–72, another ordinary season…until the extraordinary came out of the thin Colorado air.

The Rockies won 13 of their final 14 games, including the final game of the season, to tie the San Diego Padres for the wild-card, thus setting up this tiebreaker—Game 163—perhaps the coolest sporting event to ever occur in Denver, Colorado.

But they were about to blow it! Jorge Julio, a name that otherwise would’ve become an obscenity in these parts, allowed two runs in the top of the 13th inning. And with a two-run lead, Trevor William Hoffman, the eternal savior of San Diego, emerged from the bullpen. I remember Tulo, said Ryan Spilborghs, a Rockies outfielder in 2007 and my current broadcast partner for Rockies games. "He’s coming off the field in the 13th and screaming that we’re going to kick Hoffman’s ass. There are times when maybe you get your teeth kicked in, and you come into the dugout, and it’s quiet. We got no shot. The guys are stunned, they’re done, they’re punch drunk. But then there are other times when you get punched, and the guys want to counterpunch, they want to hit them back even harder. I just remember Trevor Hoffman coming in, and Tulo, always setting his glove down in the same spot at the end of the dugout, just yelling: ‘We got this guy! He’s going to get his ass kicked!’ And Todd’s like, ‘Yeah!’ And Kaz Matsui is leading off and hits a double. Then Tulo hits a double. It’s 8–7 in the 13th! Tulo was a gamer. Nobody looked at him as a rookie. It was just like, ‘All right, lead us! Go for it!’"

Tulowitzki came in second in the voting for 2007 Rookie of the Year. He could’ve won it. And Matt Holliday came in second in the voting for 2007 Most Valuable Player. He should’ve won it. Jimmy Rollins? Are you kidding me with this? He was a brilliant ballplayer, but the MVP? Holliday won the batting title with a .340 average (while hitting .301 on the road) and he led the league in RBIs with 137. Holliday also swatted 50 doubles and 36 homers. Mash Holliday. He was a game-changer, a season-saver, and finished with a .405 on-base percentage and a .607 slugging percentage. I remember shaking his hand for the first time, Rockies pitcher Josh Fogg said. There were muscles in his fingers, his thumb, and his hand that I didn’t even know existed on people. I remember asking someone, ‘Who is that guy?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, he’s a good baseball player, but he was even better at football.’ I could believe it. The guy is a monster.

And here was Holliday in Game 163, bottom of the 13th. With Tulo on second, the right-handed Holliday drove a Hoffman pitch the opposite way to right field. It sailed toward the hand-operated scoreboard. Is this going to be a walk-off home run to make the playoffs? Is Brian Giles going to catch it at the wall?

Splat!

Giles hit the wall with his body sprawled, the ball hitting above his outstretched glove. Tulo scored! Holliday scampered to third with a triple. Game tied. No one out. Holliday and his thumping heart stood on third.

• • •

Manager Clint Hurdle stood in the Rockies’ spacious clubhouse and shouted: I’ve got good news and bad news! His Rockies had just won the final game of the regular season. After 162 games—this grinding, grueling journey of 2007—they had an identical record as the San Diego Padres. The good news is: we get to play in Game 163 tomorrow night! The bad news is: the Padres are starting Jake Peavy, and we’ve got Fogger!

Oh no! Troy Tulowitzki yelled from his locker. We’re fucked!

The clubhouse erupted in laughter. Of course, Josh Fogg was a back of the rotation big league starter, who retired two years later with a 62–69 record. But his close-knit teammates had faith in him even against the Padres’ Peavy, pitching in his Cy Young season. Tulo’s playful joke summed up the Rockies. It didn’t matter who was throwing or what was thrown at them—the 2007 Rockies were makers of the impossible. At this point, the Rockies felt invincible, impervious.

And so, in a way it was fitting—in Game 163, the Rockies’ starting pitcher would be a dude with a near-5 ERA, yet also called The Dragon Slayer. Fogg had a penchant for pitching well against aces. In September of 2007, he won a key ballgame against Brandon Webb, the reigning Cy Young winner from the Arizona Diamondbacks. And Fogg won back-to-back starts in June against Curt Schilling and Mike Mussina. A teammate would even decorate the clubhouse with an airbrushed painting of Fogg slaying a dragon with a baseball. They just loved their Fogger. That was the biggest thing with that group, that they wholeheartedly enjoyed playing baseball together, said Fogg, who was 30 in 2007, his second season with the Rockies, going to the field, hanging out and going to dinner after. For them to allow me to work my way in there and find my own little niche? It was special. I ran the football pools or the basketball pools or this-and-that or fantasy football. I found my little way to contribute to the group, but they were so solid from the get-go. Sure, they would trade a guy or a guy would get released here and there, but the core group stayed together so long. They’d been in A ball, AA, AAA, ridden the busses together, and they had stories. That feeling doesn’t happen very much in baseball anymore because there are so many free agents. The teams that do build from within are going to have that ability to not have as much talent but have the chemistry that could overtake the teams with that talent.

Fogg started 29 games for the 2007 Rockies—second most behind Jeff Francis—and finished 10–9, many of the 10 wins being dragon slays. He was such a great guy, a favorite of everyone from the broadcast booth to the clubhouse. And Fogger had one of the most unusual paths to the big leagues of any Rockies player ever…considering that he was cut from his high school baseball team as a junior.

The high school season prior, he’d played second base for the junior varsity but was so bad at the plate that they used the team’s designated hitter for him and not for the pitcher. At junior year tryouts, Fogger threw some bullpen sessions but hoped to still play infield. Coach puts the list up of who’s made the team, and I’m not on it, said Fogg, who is from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. "I didn’t really know what to do then. I planned on playing baseball my junior and senior year. I go home and tell my parents. I didn’t have any big plans to go anywhere after that, so I was looking for what was next. Maybe I could play another sport? But our coach, Coach Petik, was actually our P.E. coach, and we had P.E. seventh period. Two days later, he said, ‘Josh, can I talk to you for a second?’ He brings me into his office and shuts the door. I was a very good student so I knew I wasn’t in trouble. I wasn’t getting yelled at for anything. He said, ‘Hey, do you still want to play baseball?’ I was like, ‘Yeah, I’d love to play baseball.’ He’s like, ‘Well, Ray Retzinger just failed off the team, and you’re the next guy in line, but you’re going to have to pitch.’ I was like ‘All right, I’ll pitch!’ He’s like, ‘Just so you know, you’re not going