Three decades

In 1993, the Colorado Rockies baseball team was born.  While they have had fleeting chapters of success, they are regarded as an organization that loses more than it wins.  Weeks ago, when the Rockies 2023 season mercifully came to an end, their record was an abysmal 59-103; the worst record in their 30-year history.  Isn’t that scary (just in time for Halloween)?

Let me write out three of my favorite Rockies success moments.  To begin, I remember the first time the Rockies made it to the post-season.  Behind a potent offense of hitters like Dante Bichette, Vinny Castilla, and “The Big Cat” Andres Galarraga, Colorado enjoyed their first taste of playoffs baseball.  I can still vividly recall the Rockies commentator declaring, “The Rockies are celebrating.  They are going to the playoffs before their third birthday.”  Secondly, in the 2009 season, the Rockies posted their best record.  They won 92 games and made it to the playoffs that year. 

But my personal favorite was in 2007; this was the year that the Rockies made it to the World Series.  But it was also the memorable way that they did it.  Author Nick Groke wrote an article at Colorado Sun.com, on the 30-year journey of the Rockies; you can check it out in its entirety, if you are interested right here at this link.  Groke captures the magic of that 2007 season when he writes,

“For a month, the Rockies seemed unstoppable.  They won 21 of 22 games to reach the World Series, sweeping the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks to win the National League pennant, their first significant trophy.  But after a long wait to start the World Series, the Boston Red Sox swept them in turn, winning easily before celebrating in front of Rockies fans at Coors Field.  “Rocktober” as it came to be known, was one of the greatest runs in baseball history.”

However, hope for another World Series appearance has sadly faded.  A person could go on and on with the Rockies frequently wasted potential, or front office missteps, but Nick Groke, in the just-cited article on the Rockies three-decade journey, sums up where the Rockies find themselves as an organization today.  He quotes a Rockies fan who remarked, “If you want to see baseball played at a fairly high level, you can at least come and watch the other team.”

In the film “Back to the Future” (sorry for the proverbial sharp right turn there, but stay with me), Marty McFly went back in time thirty years, from 1985 to 1955.  I had a weird time travel scene play in my head.  I imagined how Kevin in 1993 would have reacted if Kevin from thirty years later appeared, and was told of what I am going through today.  

As I write these words, I find myself in one of the most unusual and frustrating seasons of my life.  I am on the sidelines, desiring to be put back in the game, but because of continual troubling physical issues, I’m still unable to do so.  Suffice to say, Doc Brown, the inventor of the time machine in “Back to the Future”, was right when he said no one should know too much about their future!  As disappointing as the Rockies have been (and don’t get me started on the Denver Broncos; a once mighty organization that now consistently finds different ways to lose), my hope isn’t in the Rockies or the Broncos.  My hope is in God.  The One who has the whole world, the entire universe, in His hands.  

In conclusion, I have long appreciated Danny Gokey’s 2014 song “Hope in front of me”, but after hearing it again, I can resonate with it like never before, and so I have a new love for it.  It is strengthening to hear him proclaim these words: “There’s hope in front of me.  There’s a light, I still see it.  There’s a hand still holding me, even when I don’t believe it.  I might be down but I’m not dead; there’s better days still up ahead.  Even after all I’ve seen, there’s hope in front of me.”  At the very end of the song, Danny sings directly to God; he states, “I still have hope.  You are my hope.”

God bless,

Kevin