It’s always best to open with a joke: What do your Colorado Rockies and evangelist Billy Graham have in common? Answer: Both can make a stadium full of people stand up and scream, “Jesus Christ!”
Baseball curses are legendary in American’s pastime. Most of the curses are the result of greed, disrespect or questionable decision making on the part of the owners. However, it generally lies squarely on the fans.
The most legendary baseball curse is the “Curse of the Bambino.” The story goes something like this. There once was a great baseball team named the Boston Red Sox (aka your Colorado Rockies before the greedy Monfort family kicked the hot dog vendors off of their land). The Red Sox won the first ever World Series in 1903. For the next 10 years, like the New England Patriots, they won it five more times. They owed most of later success to Babe Ruth, aka “The Bambino.”
And then in 1919, the Red Sox traded the Babe to the New York Yankees. It was 86 more years before the Red Sox won the World Series in 2004. It has been talked about many times, as baseball historians laughed up their sleeves, that the Sox ownership used the Bambino money to finance the Broadway musical No No Nanette. Everything was attempted to defeat the curse, including the fans in Boston trying to “reverse the curse.”
Joke: Why can’t the Colorado Rockies use the Internet?
Answer: They can’t get three w’s in a row.
So last year the city of Denver suddenly began forcing a 20-plus-year-old ordinance keeping hot dog vendors (hard-working men and women, as opposed to the Monfort family themselves) away from the ball park. For some very interesting reasons those rules have been ignored since the beginning of the opening of Coors Field.
If you remember, as Gomer Pyle always said, “Shazaam” — that happened very suddenly. Afterwards, the Monforts spent 10 million dollars on the ballpark’s new rooftop deck and then unveiled their food and beverage area. I know that this sounds just like a coincidence, but mark my words — I searched on the Internet to find then Denver Public Works spokeswoman Christine Downs who said, “for whatever reason, we lost part of that agreement and allowed vendors to come in. They stopped the vendors when the food deck opened.” So as you go and take the family unit to see your Colorado Rockies, you can no longer grab a cheap hot dog, or for that matter, any food items on the street. You must pay the Monforts.
Another legendary curse is the “Curse of the Colonel.” Thirty years ago, a team called the Hanshin Tigers won the Japanese world series in an upset over the Seibu Lions. Fans were celebrating and running over a bridge overlooking a local canal. As luck would have it, there was a life-size statue of Colonel Sanders standing in front of a nearby KFC. The crowd seized it and threw the Colonel into the river in honor of MVP Randy Bass. Their losing streak continues to this day.
In 2009, Japanese divers were sent into the canal and retrieved the corpse of the Colonel. Lions fans were hoping that recovering the Colonel would break the curse. Tough saké. Their losing streak continues. It is now known in Japan as the “Curse of the Colonel.” If you are paying attention at home, it’s a food curse.
I began this last year placing the hot dog curse not on the players, and not on the fans, but on Dick and Charlie. I guarantee that your Colorado Rockies will win again. All those fun-loving owners have to do is allow the hot dog vendors to return to Coors Field much like the swallows to Capistrano or the buzzards back to Ohio. Winning will begin again.
But if the Monforts don’t let the hot dog vendors return, our curse may last as long as the legendary Billy Goat Curse placed on the Chicago Cubs which continues to this very day. In 1945 the owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, William Sianis, tried to bring his pet goat Murphy to Wrigley Field for game 4 of the World Series. Sianis and Murphy were both enjoying the game when the owner, PK Wrigley, who was a member of the lucky sperm club, threw them both out claiming the goat smelled. The billy goat left, and it’s been downhill for the Cubs ever since.
As you can see, curses are real — in baseball they are more real. The Monforts are acting like a Gambino Crime Family protection racket. This is a shakedown. Suddenly those regulations were enacted. What — the Monforts aren’t greedy enough? A lesson in life: always follow the money. It used to be cool getting water and peanuts for two bucks, sitting in the $5 Rockpile seats. Take me out to the ball game. The Monforts won’t play ball with the hot dog vendors. And luck won’t play centerfield for Dick and Charlie.
You gotta love it, and the curse will continue until that magic moment when the Monforts allow the hot dog vendors to return. Mark my words, all of you fans, the gentle giants of the beef industry (as the Monforts have been named) are never going to field a winning team for Rockies fans. Boston broke the curse in 2004. It’s going to be a long time before the Rockies break theirs.
So what do you call 40 millionaires sitting around a television watching the World Series? The Colorado Rockies. Love it. Live it. Learn it. And remember it as the fall classic heads your way in the years to come — play ball!
— Peter