BATTER UP: COLORADO ROCKIES

Counting down the seconds till Opening Day when life begins anew involves providing a "starting nine" of obscure trivia, fun facts, high points and low moments for all 29 major-league teams, and if there's time, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays too! Presenting: The Colorado Rockies.

1. Ohhhhhhhh, do we have to? The Rockies may be a drab, futile outfit -- may be? -- and a Triple-A team to be named later, but they are a member of the major leagues in good standing. So step to it. Fine.
2. Careful what you wish for: Denver wanted baseball in the worst way for decades -- and with the Rockies, that's pretty much how they got it. Since original owners John Antonucci and Michael I. Monus had to sell their stake in the team due to ties to an embezzlement scandal, it's been pretty much downhill.
3. Accustomed to their pace. The Rockies are set to finish either fourth or fifth for the 10th straight year. Coors Field is on Blake St., but some would say the e should be moved up two places.
4. There is hope. The Rockies are among the league leaders in lowest percentage of revenues spent on player salaries, meaning they have a war chest for the 2008-09 free-agent season, when the likes of Ichiro, Joe Nathan, Torii Hunter and Andruw Jones will be available. Let's be on the up-and-up here and not delve into the Rockies' history with big-name free agents (cough, Denny Neagle, Mike Hampton and Darryl Kile, may he rest in peace).
5. Retro Rockie: He was never anywhere in the general neighbourhood of a humourous anecdote as far as a Google search can tell, but Armando Reynoso (right-handed pitcher, 1993-96) is technically the most successful pitcher in Rockies history, which is, uh, rather telling.
   
   The 4.65 earned-run average he put up across four seasons is still the lowest among anyone who's pitched 500 innings for the Rockies. Of course, not many pitchers can last that long in Colorado. The even 4.00 ERA he put up in 1993 also stood as the team's record until three years ago.
6. Ask about their Willy. The big off-season pickup was leadoff man and centre-fielder Willy Taveras who helped Houston reach the World Series two years ago. Taveras is going to allowed to steal to his heart's content. Essentially, the Rockies are saying, "Look, we realize having a guy who isn't anywhere close to a league-average hitter in the leadoff spot isn't effective, but we're going nowhere and he can steal 55 bases and keep fans interested, so that's how it's going to be."
7. Tulowitzki and Iannetta. The Rockies marketing department should do a series of Starsky & Hutch-themed promos -- Tulo and Iannetta -- featuring their young hopefuls, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki and catcher Chris Iannetta. Both are expected to become fixtures at positions which have generally been black holes for Colorado -- dashing and dynamic like Starsky & Hutch, but presumably without the latent sexual tension of the Owen Wilson-Ben Stiller movie.
8. All about abbreviation. Headline writers and bloggers seem to have thing for clipping the team's name to Rox to save space. Sorry, but anyone who does that has Rox in his or her head.
9. The need-to-know: They should be able to go .500 and stay out of the NL West basement, especially when San Francisco starts to slide. The pitching beyond Aaron Cook and Canada's own Jeff Francis (top photo) is a dog's breakfast. By August, manager Clint Hurdle is going to be drawing names from a hat to pick his starting pitcher on the days when Cook and Francis aren't throwing.
   
   However, Colorado's got hitting at the corners -- Matt Holliday, Brian Hawpe, Todd Helton and Garrett Atkins. Up the middle, there's youngsters at catcher and shortstop, Taveras in centre and Kaz Matsui will have a chance to restart his American career at second base. The Rockies should have been about five games better than their 76-86 record last season. Unlike the other NL West no-hopers, San Francisco, they're not living in the past, and there's as much reason to hope is there ever is where the Rockies -- or Rox -- are concerned.

That's all for now. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.