Spring Training drags on; Opening Day draws near

I have always said that Spring Training is an extreme tease for baseball fans.

It begins when most fans are mired in the middle of a very cold winter. They see clips and highlights of their favorite team and favorite players playing the game of summer in the hot sun of Florida or Arizona. It makes fans feel like baseball is close.

It always brings hope. It brings hope that winter is soon to be finished, and summer will be arriving shortly. It also brings hope to fans of all 30 Major League Baseball teams. Inevitably, articles are published about this player or that player talking about how they worked out this offseason. Some lifted harder than the prior offseason, some ran more. Some gained weight, some dropped weight. However, no matter what they did, it was to become a better baseball player.

While the fan sits in their snow-covered, iced-over homes that feel more like an igloo at that point in February, these types of reports bring hope. Maybe this is the year. No matter how the club looked the prior season, there is reason to believe that this just might be the year.

The comeback of Juan Nicasio is beyond words for the Colorado Rockies

Juan Nicasio delivers a pitch in his rookie campaign of 2011

No one would have guessed it. 


When Juan Nicasio went down after being drilled in the face by an Ian Desmond line drive back in August, everyone hoped for the best. They hoped for the best, but feared the worst. As word got back to the Rockies and their fans, it seemed as if the worst had happened.


The news of Nicasio's broken neck turned the attention from how quickly Nicasio could get back on the mound, to simply hoping that there was no permanent damage and that the young right-hander would be able to lead a normal life, completely regardless of the game of baseball.

Can Todd Helton be the first member of the Colorado Rockies in the Hall of Fame?

Has Helton done enough to go to the Hall of Fame?

There has never been a voting system with more flaws. 


The Baseball Hall of Fame is voted on by writer's who have covered Major League Baseball for at least 10 seasons for a newspaper, a magazine, or another recognized publication and are members of the Baseball Writers Association of America. So it would make sense that these guys know the game and who is good, right? 


Wrong.


The reality is, many of these writers barely follow the game anymore. Many covered one team, and one division for their whole careers and never paid attention to the other teams, let alone the other league. Many of the voters used to cover baseball, but have long since left the game.

No excuse for Colorado Rockies fans to be in the dark

Troy Tulowitzki gets his work in at Salt River Fields 

Anyone waiting to see where Peyton Manning lands via free agency is well aware, Twitter has changed sports.


With radio talk show hosts, beat writers, national experts and the guy in the next cubicle over tweeting every single move a player or a team makes, Twitter has educated the masses, but it has also changed the game.


Five years ago, a Colorado Rockies fan would have to wait for the score to be told to them at the top of the hour to find out who won the spring training game. With the knowledge of who won or lost, and potentially finding out if a player had a good day was all the true fan needed.


After all, spring training is just a preparation period. 


Spring training is when players get their swings back, when pitchers work on certain pitches, regardless of counts, and when the final three innings are played between guys whose jersey numbers are in the 80's and most likely will be spending the majority of their season in Single-A or Double-A. 


Well, that is what spring training used to be.

The fallout from the Ubaldo Jimenez trade continues

July 30th, 2011 will be remembered by Colorado Rockies fans as a very dark day. 

Few fans pictured this image before the 2011 season began.

As news that the team had indeed traded their ace, Ubaldo Jimenez to the Cleveland Indians, fans stood in shock. Despite a disappointing first half of 2011, Jimenez was the first true dominant pitcher in club history. 


Making the move even more shocking was that Jimenez was not only still in a Rockies uniform, he was on the mound, awkwardly pitching through a distracted final inning.


The finger-pointing began. In the clubhouse after the game, when the mood should have been somber, team leader Troy Tulowitzki made some scathing remarks that showed what fans later found out to be a huge issue throughout the failed 2011 season. There was a huge divide in the clubhouse.

Alex White arrested for DUI in Scottsdale, have Colorado Rockies lowered their standards?

It happens every year. 


Some team and their fans get the unfortunate news that one of their players has been arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol.


On Sunday morning, the Rockies were on the bad end of that news. 


Alex White, the second most important player in the Ubaldo Jimenez trade, was caught for having too much alcohol and getting behind the wheel. White, who is fighting for a spot in the starting rotation, may have put a huge road block in his own path.