Multiple Colorado Rockies test positive for Coronavirus. Monfort needs to sell the team or fire Brid
Four time All Star outfielder and 2017 NL batting champion Charlie Blackmon, aka Chuck Nazty aka The Bearded Beauty has tested positive for Coronavirus. Left handed pitcher Phillip Diehl and right handed pitcher Ryan Castellani have also tested positive on the Rockies roster. The positive tests came after taking part in recent workouts at Coors Field. The Denver Post listed unnamed sources when confirming the players who tested positive. The list of players to test positive in the MLB continues to grow as at least 15 players have tested positive for COVID-19.
This announcement comes on the heels of the MLB and MLBPA coming to an agreement on a return to play policy. After months of disagreeing on how many games should be played and how much the BILLIONAIRE owners can afford to pay their players, an agreement was finally reached and training camps will open July 1st. You still can’t say baseball is back. You just can’t. With how the negotiations transpired and the amount of players testing positive for Coronavirus it’s silly to say baseball, or any sport for that matter, is ‘back’ until players step on the diamond or whatever playing surface.
Don’t mean to get all Negative Nancy on you but there was an announcement about the return of baseball and how close the negotiations were to being completed every other day for a month. It was exhausting to keep track of and eventually die hard baseball fans gave up hope of a season happening. So as a fan of baseball, just not a diehard fan, I still don’t see this season happening, I mean it most likely will with the agreement finally happening, but until the players step up to home plate for the first pitch of the year than baseball isn’t ‘back.’
Don’t get me wrong I want to see baseball played in the year 2020. I want to see the NHL return and all of sports play in 2020. Yet my dream scenario for the MLB went out the window with the announcement of 60 games. The dream has nothing to do with the season to be honest with you. It has everything to do with the success of my hometown team the Rockies. Dick Monfort has been a terrible owner. Sure he’s built an awesome stadium for baseball in Denver, arguably a top 10 baseball stadium in the nation, but the team on the field is rarely good.
Once in the history of the Rockies have they put up back to back winning seasons. Once, just once, and both of those years the Rockies were eliminated in the Wild Card round of the playoffs. The one year the Rockies made the World Series they got steamrolled by the Red Sox. The Sox outscored the Rockies 29-10 and swept them in four games, series didn’t even last a week. Since then it hasn’t gotten any better. Like I said, the Rockies have only had winning seasons in back to back years once, that was 2017 and 2018. After the 2018 season Nolan Arenado, best third basemen in baseball and the Rockies best chance at a second player being enshrined in the Hall of Fame, signed a massive extension on the stipulation that the organization put a winning team around him.
Well that sure as shit didn’t happen. The Rockies were piss poor last season and Arenado got into a feud with Jeff Bridich, the general manager, over the team not doing a thing to put a better team together around Arenado. Trade rumors were everywhere and Rockies fans were up in arms. Fans wanted Bridich fired for pissing of the best player on the team and for not signing a single new player to a roster that went 71-91. A pretty good chunk of fans still want Bridich fired, myself included.
Under the ownership of Dick Monfort and the managing of Jeff Bridich the Rockies are a sideshow playing in the nicest bar in Colorado that just so happens to be attached to a Major League Baseball stadium. My dream season for the MLB was of Dick Monfort crying poor all year until someone made a bid on the Rockies that actually wants winning baseball in Colorado. Going to the bar at the top of Coors field would be a lot more entertaining if the baseball on the field was good too. Until then I guess fans will just have to black out on $12 beers while the Rockies lose. Only way to watch some of the games anyways. At least the rooftop bar is fun.
Sad realization I had while writing this. Jeff Bridich is almost guaranteed two more years as manager of the Rockies. With this season being drastically shortened and changed to fit in with a global pandemic it is unlikely a team would fire the manager after a bad year this year. Now a bad year next year and maybe Bridich gets fired. Who knows, fingers crossed for successful baseball in Colorado.