The afternoon was pleasant enough, around 70 degrees, and corwin and I had a nice visit to the Denver Zoo. But as we headed to the ballpark at 5pm, a sprinkle and a thunder shower passed over. "Don't worry," the shuttle driver told us. "It'll clear up. There'll just be a little of this and it'll pass over." That wasn't what the weatherman said, though, so I packed a rain jacket anyway.

At the will call window we picked up our tickets and the nice lady inside noticed our Yankees caps and asked if it was our first time at Coors Field. We said it was, and she gave us a handy brochure about the ballpark and the Rockies which we perused while waiting for the gate to open. Did you know this is the Rockies' tenth year of operation? And to think that a mere decade ago, all the talk in Major League Baseball was of expansion, not contraction... (grumble grumble Selig grumble grumble).

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "Bicycle parking areas are located past the Wynkoop Walkway."

If you have been to ballparks around the country, you may have noticed a small industry in scorecard magazines sold outside the park. In Baltimore the magazine is even called "The Outside Pitch." At Fenway Park, the unofficial publication is "Boston Baseball," in Seattle, "The Grand Salami." The aforementioned publications are slick and glossy, easily rivalling the official scorecard magazines produced by the teams, especially when one considers that they are usually half the price of the team publications. I like the fan magazines. I like the entrepreneurial spirit and love for the team they display. So I had my eyes open for vendors outside the gates.

A man in a Rockies hat and jersey approached us, his shoulders slung with bags, one stuffed with purple beanie bears of some kind and Sharpies of every color. Turns out that for the Rockies, the "fan magazine" is a one man show. The "magazine" is a home-produced publication, done on a color desktop printer and bound with the cardboard scorecard in a clear plastic report cover. Entitled the "Home Plate Program," the compilation of colorful pages included stats on all the players of both teams, standings accurate as of the day before, a trivia quiz, a maze, and other Rockies info like the schedule and seating chart. And some ads. Advertisers were encouraged to "see me outside Gate D." We never found out the fellow's name, though. With our purchase we also got a purple pencil emblazoned with silver letters: "Colorado Baseball Rocks!" Sly. The plastic report cover would come in handy later, when the rain would start.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "Guests are permitted to seek autographs from players along the railing between sections 116-121 and 142-146 up to 40 minutes prior to game time, or until the end of batting practice, whichever comes first."

At 5:15 the gates opened and we had the very nice option of sitting down behind the Rockies dugout to watch the team take batting practice. In many stadiums (like Yankee Stadium) you can't even enter the entire section that close to the dugout without the right ticket. In Colorado, they protect only the ten rows right behind the dugout during BP, but during the game the ushers are actually pretty picky about where you go. We heard public address announcements warning us to carry our ticket stubs and to expect to be stopped by ushers each time we returned to our seats. But during BP, we could go pretty much wherever we wanted.

Being an American league fan, I don't know the Rockies that well. There was no player I was dying to take photos of or get autographs from. So we decided to walk a circuit around the park, explore all the food and fun options, before we settled on the best place to watch BP: the left field bleachers. Perhaps "watch" is not the right word, since you can't really see the batter all that well, but you can see the ball fly toward you quite often. After a quick look into the souvenir shops--where, by the way, they are stocking up on Yankees souvenirs like crazy, but not any of their other AL opponents--corwin got a barbecued beef sandwich that he pronounced as extremely good, and I sat down in the bleachers to try to grab a BP home run ball.

I had no glove, so my only chance was probably to grab a bouncer, or get one that someone else dropped. Out there, they have a special front row of seats, and would only let people with tickets for that row go down there. Several guys, one who looked like he was in his late sixties, had brought their gloves and made some very good leaping catches. The old fella had a nice snag leaning way out over the rail. By the time the Dodgers BP was done, he had three or four balls in his pockets. One of the other guys had at least three. I meant to ask them what they did with all the balls--give them to their nephews? use them in Little League practice?--but I never got around to it.

I did not get a ball, but it was fun watching them fly in the thin Colorado air. (The BP balls are not kept in the humidor.) The other excitement was the warnings appearing on the scoreboard: a Tornado Watch and a Severe Thunderstorm Warning were issued for Denver. Some rain fell briefly during BP, but nothing to really worry about.

It was still raining when BP ended, but the weather was warm and we ended up at a food stand buying our traditional "sundae in a helmet." I was in heaven when I found out that at Coors Field, when they say "sundae in a helmet" they actually mean a real sundae, with chocolate, strawberry, or pineapple sauce, nuts, whipped cream, over soft serve ice cream. I got it all but the pineapple sauce. Yum.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "Banners and signs are permitted, provided they are baseball related and in good taste."

Then we moseyed over to the "interactive area." They had several booths set up, like the fairly common "three pitches" radar gun stand. Kids who threw faster than 50 m.p.h. won a prize (I think it was tickets to ESPN Zone?) as did adult women who threw faster than 65 m.p.h. and men who topped 75. But we didn't see any adults who could throw that hard. Kids, yes. There were other stands, as well, though. There was one that was like a batting cage, but the pitching machine was hidden behind a movie screen. You could choose between various All Star pitchers (all National league except for Pedro Martinez) and it would show you a film clip of their windup--and then the ball would come flying out of a hole in the screen as if they had thrown it. Talk about difficult. The screen couldn't have been more than 35 feet away, and the ball came in fast. Most guys didn't even make contact. There was also a tee-ball cage for kids with a mini-home run fence for them to hit the ball over, a video "Home Run Derby" game, and a broadcast booth, where for $10 you could record your own play by play for a half inning (live, while the game was on) and take a tape home with you.

Hunger crept up on me despite the ice cream. The food choices were not as varied as at Pacbell (caribbean food) or Safeco (sushi and stir fry), but there was a "deli" stand, and some other novelties (fish and chips, Taco Bell). I could have had a Gardenburger (vegetarian burger) but decided that, novel as that experience might have been, I wanted meat. I grabbed a very delicious-looking steak and cheese sandwich and we headed up the escalator to our seats.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "Guests may chew tobacco in any area of the ballpark. All Guests must spit into a cup at all times and dispose of the waste in a trash container."

By that point, about a dozen people had noticed our Yankees hats (I was also wearing a generic pinstriped jersey). And every person, from fans to stadium employees, had said pretty much the same thing. "Whoa, you guys are a few weeks early!" (The Yankees are coming to Denver June 18th.) And: "Hey, we're looking forward to that series. Enjoy the game!" At Coors Field they have not learned to despise us yet. They're genuinely friendly and they really ARE excited about the Yankees. (The Indians, on the other hand, they seem indifferent to.) We'll see if they're still so friendly in the future if the Yankees sweep them.

What was funny is that every person who mentioned our hats acted like we were the first Yankees fans they had ever seen. But there were a ton of Yankees fans there that night. And not just wearing hats--I saw Yankees satin field jackets, Tino Martinez t-shirts, and various jerseys. In fact, I counted more Yankees hats than Dodgers hats. Curious, given how many ex-Californians there are in Colorado, and that the Dodgers were the opponent. I predict there will be a ton of Yankees fans at the games in mid-June, just like there are when the Yankees play the Angels in Anaheim, or the Blue Jays in Toronto, or the Devil Rays in Tampa. We are everywhere.

Our seats were in our preferred area--upper deck, behind home plate. From up there, we had a panoramic view of the field and corwin pointed out that the manual scoreboard was very similar to the one at PacBell, and located in the same place. He also noticed that the font face used on the concession stands was the same as the font used around PacBell. Well, gee, guess what? They were both designed by HOK Sport of Kansas City--the same folks responsible for Camden Yards and many of the other new stadiums (PNC, Comerica, etc...) Where PacBell has a lot of bells and whistles (the giant Coke bottle, the giant glove, the waterfront promenade), Coors is not quite so over the top. Like Camden Yards it is a comfortable park with good sight lines and spacious seats (especially when compared with the cramped boxes of Fenway Park.)

Another unique feature of Coors Field was the line of purple seats ringing the upper deck. The A-Z GUEST GUIDE informed us that these seats are at 5,280 feet (one mile) above sea level. And how about the plastic bottle recycling machines around the park? Feed a used water bottle into one and get a token out worth some prize (we didn't find out what). The bullpens looked much like a miniature golf course, as they were attached to the Coors Field "Water Feature"--a landscaped arrangement of rocks and native shrubs with seven fountains that shoot up before the first pitch, when a homer is hit, and during the seventh inning stretch. Compared to the faux rocks and canyons at Disney's Edison Field, the Coors Water Feature was quite tasteful--though I still think the geysers, red flames, and fireworks that shoot out at Edison Field are a lot of fun. Coors Field seats 50,449 including the "rockpile"-a bleacher section over 500 feet from home plate, ABOVE the batter's eye and behind the concourse! Rockpile tickets are only $4 for adults, $1 for kids... hard to beat. But bring your binoculars.

What really makes a stadium for me, of course, are the fans. From my travels around the major leagues, I've observed crowds to act in two ways--as spectators, who cheer and clap when exhorted to by the scoreboard, or as participants, who cheer and clap without being cued because they are trying to influence the outcome of the game. At Yankee Stadium, at Fenway, and in the Oakland Coliseum, you find the latter type. In Baltimore, I was surprised to find the former type, the crowd quiet and polite--until the late innings anyway. It was much the same at Safeco and at Coors, but do not think that one type of crowd is superior to the other. As corwin put it, during a crucial at bat in the game: "Here, they cheer until he gets in the batters box, then stop. At Yankee Stadium, we'd still be screaming." When exhorted, the Coors crowd was loud and lusty.

And dedicated. If the Rockies were merely a fair weather franchise, then when the rain came down in the second inning, one would expect the stadium to empty. It did not. Many people stayed in their seats, their rain ponchos and umbrellas sprouting like mushrooms in the shower. Those who went for cover climbed to the top of their sections where possible, looking over their shoulders at the game as they went up the stairs. Yes, there were those who left, especially after the tarp came out in the bottom of the third and there was no guarantee that the game would continue.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "During live play, whenever a Guest catches a foul or homerun ball from any player before it makes contact with another Guest, an object, the railing, or the ground, they are entitled to a 'Clean Catch Pin.'"

The hot chocolate at Coors Field is served in generously large cups. This is a good thing when you've been sitting in the rain and the temperature has dropped into the fifties. As we stood on the dry concourse with hundreds of other people clustered around the concession stands and souvenir booths, I thought about how ironic it is that at almost every game I've been to this season I've frozen my tail off. The home opener in the Bronx--brrr, I wore ski pants! That first Yanks/Sox game at Fenway in April was freezing, too. Come to think of it, the first game of the next Yanks/Sox series at Fenway was also very chilly and windy. I think my next game will be at the Ballpark in Arlington--no, I'm not kidding--where it can hit 100 degrees.

The rain slowed to a spitting drizzle, and the tarp came off. Cheers erupted from around the park. I don't know what energized the fans more, the fact that the game was going to continue, or the fact that 2B Jose Ortiz had gotten the Rockies' first hit of the night just moments before the downpour had forced the players off the field, and now he stole second on the first pitch after the rain delay. The pitcher, 27 year old Denny Stark, was at the plate and the Dodger's hurler, Odalis Perez, must have gotten too comfortable in the clubhouse during the rain. Stark singled, and Ortiz came home. We were tickled pink to see a national league pitcher get an RBI, "helping his own cause."

I believe in the DH rule. Why? Because if you look back over the long history of major league baseball, other than a few exceptions like Tony Cloninger, pitchers cannot hit for s**t. They never could. Many of them can't run, either. As David Cone once said, "I run like a duck." If the essential confrontation in the game is between pitcher and batter, to me it lessens that tension to have one "easy out" in the lineup. Pitchers batting in the major leagues is a travesty. They are at such a severe disadvantage compared with position players--only facing live pitching once every five days, and then only for two or three at bats at most--that it is like sending the bat boy up for a few hacks. When some of them get in the box, like Eddie Gaedel, they've been told not to swing! That makes a mockery of the whole process, as far as I'm concerned, and I say just get them the hell out of there. What we pay for is to see our athletes perform at the highest level of competition, at the absolute peak of their abilities. When you see a pitcher bat, that ain't what you're getting. That said, seeing Stark get an RBI single couldn't have surprised us more than if Clint Hurdle had sent the mascot in to pinch hit. We enjoyed it, we laughed and cheered. (We were rooting for the Rockies after all.) But to see Stark run the bases with his jacket on, just makes me think he shouldn't be out there.

Since I've mentioned the mascot, I'll tell you its name is Dinger. (The A-Z Guest Guide is mum on what gender Dinger is.) They found some dinosaur bones while doing the excavation for the park, and the team color is purple, so Dinger is a purple dinosaur. No, Dinger doesn't look like Barney, thank goodness, and doesn't sing. It's more of a triceratops. If you don't know what that is, ask any ten year old (and then take them out to play catch).

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "At no time should a foul or home run ball be thrown back onto the field. Violators will be subject to ejection."

I suppose I forgot to mention that the Dodgers had scored two runs in the first inning, on a walk a triple and a single, but that Denny Stark had struck out the other three men he faced. The walk was to Shawn Green, who ESPN had called "the hottest hitter in the National League" the night before, and who had hit four homers in a game in very recent memory. The Rockies got a run back on Stark's RBI single, and through Stark was forced out at second by Juan Pierre's grounder, Pierre then scored on Juan Uribe's double. Tie game.

The rain let up for a little while, and Todd Zeile hit a solo homer in the bottom of the fourth. Zeile, a former Met, apparently came to the Rockies in their attempt to get every guy in the majors named Todd. Todds Helton, Zeile, and Hollandsworth bat 4, 5, and 6 in the lineup. And then there's Todd Jones, the reliever, who used to close for the Tigers and Twins. They're also working on a collection of Juans, with Pierre and Uribe batting 1 and 2. Thank goodness for Larry Walker.

We were pleased with Stark. We didn't know much about him, but from his numbers we were guessing that he wasn't an ace--this would be his fifth start this season. 3.47 ERA. He also seemed to average only 5-6 innings per start. So when Ortiz led off the bottom of the fifth with a bunt infield single, we were almost surprised to see Stark hit for himself. He flied out to center on the first pitch. His teammates got him another run, though, on two more singles and a groundout to first. 4-2 Rockies. Stark then went out and pitched his best inning of the game, a 1-2-3 that ended with him facing Shawn Green, who had walked in both previous plate appearances. This time, he struck out looking.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "During games, Guests are permitted to leave the ballpark and return... Please see the gate supervisor to have both your ticket stub and hand stamped."

One other point of amusement from the bottom five, the three singles had loaded the bases for Larry Walker. Normally when Walker comes to bat, the scoreboard operators would play "Crazy Train." This time, they played the Star Wars theme. The crowd went absolutely nuts. This is really fun, this is what going to a big league game is all about. That's why they call it "The Show." Of course, as I already told you, all Walker got out of it was a grounder to first and an RBI, but it was fun anyway.

Stark cruised through one more inning after that, another 1-2-3, while the Dodger lefthander Perez snuffed a possible rally-starter in the sixth with a pickoff/caught stealing of Todd Hollandsworth. Oh, and two strikeouts. Still, up to that point, it appeared the Rockies were in control. The rain was on and off, but not heavy enough to perturb much. Many people had left, but all sections of the ballpark were still partly populated, and the crowd was lively and noisy. We were having fun.

Maybe we should have left when the rain intensified at the top of the 8th. Or maybe we should have seen that things were about to get out of control, given how the seventh went. But we're not the type to leave before the very last out. corwin and I just won't do it. As corwin puts it "come on, if there's going to be any drama or excitement in a game, it's going to be right at the end!"

Stark had been removed from the game in the 7th, when Alex Cora was put into pinch hit for the Dodger pitcher, and Kent Mercker came on to face him, except that then Cora was removed and Bocachica pinch hit for him. Bocachica struck out. The next batter, Dave Roberts, was removed for pinch hitter Marquis Grissom, and Mercker gave way to Todd Jones. It seemed like a bit of over-managing to me, or like neither manager trusted his players to do the job and trusted the stats more. That's one thing I'll say about Joe Torre. Even after all those years in the N.L.--his entire career and many, many years managing--the National League "style of play" didn't ruin his common sense or his trust in his players.

As it turned out, Jones served up something to Grissom that he liked, and he walloped a ball to the very deepest part of the ballpark, where Pierre hauled it in on the warning track after a very long run. Phew, inning over, but there was a sense of impending doom.

The Rockies did not score in the bottom seven, despite a two-out triple from Juan Pierre. And as Paul LoDuca, 0-for-3, stepped in to face Todd Jones in the top eight, the rain and wind intensified. (I wondered briefly where we should go if there was a tornado.)

Todd Jones, I like. I like his column in The Sporting News, and I like his old-style moustache, and his tough rubber arm. The night before, he had been called in at PacBell Park to face Barry Bonds with men on base... and struck him out. Yeah! But facing LoDuca, he didn't have it. base hit. Then Shawn Green got his first hit of the night, a big double. Manager Clint Hurdle pulled Jones from the game then, perhaps remembering that Grissom's ball was nearly a home run.

FROM THE COORS FIELD A-Z GUEST GUIDE: "Yellow Line: The Colorado Rockies invite Guests to stand on the Main Concourse to watch the game, although they must stand behind the yellow line."

The rain was coming down quite hard by this time, and the wind picked up to the point where even under the roof in the upper deck, we were getting slammed with horizontal raindrops. We headed down to the concourse level where we could stand under cover behind the seating area. (Ushers prevents us from taking seats down there.) Many hundreds of people had the same idea we did, and we joined quite a raucous group.

Unfortunately, the rain undid the Rockies' pitchers. Next came Jose Jimenez, who gave up two hits in a row, allowing the inherited runners to score, and putting more men on base. Then he got a comebacker right to the mound and threw to first for the out, holding the runners. Good. Next batter, same thing, a comebacker right to him. But the runners were moving on contact and the man on third, Brian Jordan, was caught off base. Jimenez tried to run him down. Jordan retreated toward third. Jimenez then tried to throw the ball to Zeile to continue the run down, but the wet ball sailed into left field, and both runners scored. Hurdle pulled Jimenez, Alex Speier came on and recorded two more outs (though they intentionally walked a pinch hitter named Hansen). When the carnage was over, the Dodgers had batted around and taken a 6-4 lead.

The rain was very heavy and everyone was cold and miserable, but down only by two runs, no one was leaving. Larry Walker, he of the bases-loaded RBI groundout to the strains of "Star Wars" earlier in the game, led off the inning. There were cheers and stomping of feet. If our pitchers couldn't grip the wet ball, maybe the Dodgers' couldn't either. Walker fouled off pith after pitch -- the intensity of the crowd building with each. I think the count was 1-2 but he had a nine pitch at bat. From where we were standing, on the first base side, we could not really tell what the pitch was that Walker hit. Nor could we tell where the ball went, because it went so high and so far that from under the overhang where we were, we couldn't see it. But it was a home run, that was for sure. Go Larry! There's something special about moments like that--the long at bat, the anticipation rising, everyone wanting one thing:--home run--and then getting it. That moment alone was worth the price of admission.

And it made it a one run game. The next batter (Helton) walked. One more blast, we were thinking, and we move ahead. Then: do the Rockies have a closer? We didn't know. But if we could take the lead, we were three outs from winning.

We didn't take the lead. Zeile, who hit his homer already, grounded into a DP and Hollandsworth struck out. Well, we thought, there is still the bottom of the ninth. Only one run down... but we were thinking it somewhat desperately. Ever since the Grissom smash that almost went out, the game had felt precarious and the Rockies appeared to be hanging on a ledge with the Dodgers stamping on their fingers.

In the top nine, the Dodgers pretty much came down on the remaining pinky with both hobnailed boots. The ball was slipping around out there like a bar of Ivory soap. Speier had opened the inning hitting LoDuca with an 0-2 pitch. A wet ball squirted out of an outfielder's hand to move runners up. There were hits. Speier left after giving up two runs with two men on. A guy named Nichting then came in (for some reason neither the Home Plate program nor the tv monitors showed his first name) and struck out Mark Grudzielanek--a faint flicker of hope. But he gave up a home run to Adrian Beltre and it was 11-5 Dodgers. Dang.

Eric Gagne appeared to have no trouble with the wet ball and the Rockies went quietly in the ninth, as did we. We ran across the street to an ATM machine and waved down a cab. The rain did not let up the rest of the night and continued on even as our flight was leaving the next day. They're having a drought in Denver, with wildfires destroying homes all around Colorado, so you can't really begrudge nature some rain, even if it did cost the Rockies a game in the standings.

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