Drew Goodman - Colorado Rockies: Stories from the Colorado Rockies Dugout, Locker Room, and Press Box

~

To Kristi. As Im fond of saying, I married over my head figuratively and literally.

To Jacob, Zachary, and Gabriel. One of the greatest joys of my life has been sharing our collective love of the game of baseball. I love you all more than words will ever express.

To my dad. Thank you for introducing to me the game that has meant so much in my life. I love you.

DG

To Angela Hochman, who is my pretty baby and my teammate for life. And to Mason Folz, the toughest dude in Colorado.

BH

Contents

Foreword by Bud Black

The Colorado Rockies are a true regional franchise, and thats pretty cool stuff. Its a wide-ranging fanbaseand its a beautiful part of the country, which goes without saying. The fans are extremely loyal. You can tell from Opening Day, which means so much to Colorado baseball fans. And in 2007 I was the manager of the San Diego Padres during that playoff push, and what I saw from the Rockies fans was awesome.

And the ballpark! Wow, its been 25 years and it still looks like a fresh, new facility. Having watched it during the last couple years, Im really impressed by the work they do to maintain it, the commitment to ballpark operations, and all the engineers and people who work on the stadium on a daily basis. Its a tremendous park thats held up for 25 years, and I suspect its gonna hold up for another 25 years. I admire the overall commitment and love that people have for this park, this part of the country, and their sports teams.

What made the Rockies job desirable? From the interview process, the passion I felt from owner Dick Monfort and general manager Jeff Bridich and the front office was really impressive to me. It was desirable because of how they felt about the Rockies, about baseball, about winning, and their goals to win. The entire state of the organization from top to bottom made this a great job.

The ownership grew the front office. And what I saw from afar about their direction and philosophy on a number of things stood out, especially where they were headed with their pitching programs and the present group of position players, as well as the state of their farm system.

I love this game. Its wonderful for a number of reasons. What I like is that everybody has played baseball at some point. Whether as a young kid, whether its at recess at school, whether its organized, whether its a picnic out front in the driveway, most every boy, girl, man, and woman has played catch, caught a fly ball, fielded a grounder, swung a bat, hit a ball. Thats why I think that everybody can relate to our game.

For me, at this level, I still think that the competitive nature of the hitter versus pitcher is a great battle. And everything that goes into winning baseballdefense, hitting, pitching, base runningis special to me.

Early on as a player, I tried to understand all sides of everybody in this gamefrom the front office to the media. Everybody has a different perspective and job; its truly all of us who make up this game. And its everybody working together that makes this the great game it is.

There are people in this game who love it as much as I do.

Even before I was the Rockies manager, I got to know Drew Goodman from watching Rockies telecasts while channel surfing through games, as all baseball people do. I always liked Drews style. When I was with the Padres, our teams were in the same division, so even then I grew to appreciate and admire Drews work as a broadcaster.

I also know that Drew has a job to do . He has to be honest, fair, and concise about the good and the bad. There are listeners out there who want the story, and I get that. But he does it in a fair wayand I hear it from my familyhe pumps us up but lets us know when things arent right. Its a balance and a talent.

Id get to know Drew at the pressers for the visiting manager and I was very comfortable with his presence, his knowledge, his interaction, and his feel. His understanding of the athlete and the manager and the coach, the total comprehensive feel of what we do, is what stands out. For us in uniform, its a cool thing. Drew gets it. And for me, theres not much of a bigger compliment that I pay to people.

Rockies manager Bud Black

Introduction

I feel 18 every day I walk into the ballpark. I walk up the stairs to the dugout, take in the perfectly manicured lawn, the immaculate clay of the infield. There will be a game today, and I get to narrate. No two games are identical, and every day there is a possibility well see something weve never seen before. I appreciate your nightly invitation into your homes.

We get to share with you the jubilation of a walk-off win, the amazement in Nolan Arenado taking a would-be double and turning it into a ridiculously improbable out, the wicked and torrid flight of a CarGo take a good look, you wont see it for long homer to the third deck. We also feel the same pain as you, when the team suffers a defeat that feels like a kick to the gut. It is difficult to fully describe what the game of baseball has meant to meand to my family. It encompasses us.

Since racing off the bus as a six-year-old to see the New York Mets in the 1969 World Series, Ive always known that I enjoyed the game. It was important to my dad. I was born on Long Island, but we moved to Westchester County, north of the city, when I was seven. Pound Ridge is where I claim that I grew up. I started playing Little League there and eventually graduated from Fox Lane High School in Bedford, New York, where I excelled in football and baseball. But of the two, I felt my future was tied to baseball. I received a number of accolades on the field in high school and even had a couple of workouts for professional teams (the Cincinnati Reds and Seattle Mariners). That led to the delusional thought that I would one day get an opportunity to get paid to play. I went on to play college ball but ultimately found my way to broadcasting this great game.

One of my grandest life joys has been teaching my kids the game of baseball, playing the game with them, and watching them play. I was the crazy dad whowhen each of my three boys reached 18 monthstook a plastic bat and put it in their hands from the left side of the plate. They all throw righty but were going to have the advantage of hitting lefty. We threw and hit everywhere we went. When they were really young, my wife, Kristi, would schlep them through airports in matching shirts (in case one strayed from the pack) to come stay with me in whatever city the team was playing. In the mornings we would find a park or a strip of grass somewhere and play catch, field ground balls, or play Wiffle Ball.

When they got older, I would take them in the morning to the clubhouse, and we would hit in the cages on the visiting side before players would arrive. Around the age of nine, they would come out with me and shag balls during early batting practice. That was a big deal. I remember when Jacob caught a long fly off the bat of Matt Holliday. Cool stuff. Unforgettable stuff. We took a trip to Scotland when the boys were six, four, and one. I recall playing Wiffle Ball on a patch of grass adjacent to the harbor in Edinburgh. People were quite a bit curious as to what we were up to.

I was recently sitting on a field in the Buckhead section of Atlanta, sweating in the heat of a mid-August Georgia afternoon. Jacob, my oldest, was with me on this trip, filling in for Doug Marino, our regular stats and research guy. We had just finished having a catch and taking some ground balls. We were just visiting about life, about baseball, about his upcoming semester in Spain. A line from our favorite sports movie, Remember the Titans , popped into my head. Our whole family loves it. Jacob knows virtually every line verbatim. The line I was thinking of so accurately portrays the almost spiritual relationship I have with the game of baseball, though it can be for whatever sport stirs inside someone. Coach Boone, played so well by Denzel Washington, is standing in the fully lit but empty high school football stadium the night before a big game. He says to the character Doc: This is my sanctuary right hereThis is always right. Its just a game, Doc, but I love it.