Need a Baseball Team to Root For? Why To Root For Colorado.

As a lifelong Kansas City Royals fan, I need to find reasons to even care about baseball after Memorial Day. Unlike fans of, say, the Cubs, who at least sniff the playoffs, that just doesn't happen with me.

If you are, like me, a casual baseball fan without a "horse in the race", consider this team.

The Colorado Rockies.



Clint Hurdle is the manager of the Rockies. Has been since 2002, when he took over a bad team. Colorado was supposed to be mired in another bad season this year. Just when Hurdle is getting sized up for the Managing Guillotine, they won. And won. And won a little bit more. All told, Colorado won 13 of 14 to end the year...and they STILL had to win a play-in game.

Colorado just finished off a sweep of Philadelphia in the National League Wild-Card round. They're into the NLCS.

I grew up watching Hurdle when he was a "phenom". At the age of 20, Hurdle faced immense pressure as SI put him on the cover in spring training in 1978. That only made it even more difficult for Hurdle to crack the Royals' lineup and be an everyday starter, much less hit .327 and be "the next George Brett".

Those Royals teams, mind you, were loaded at just about every position. Hurdle platooned in right field, usually playing when facing right-handed pitching. But he just never found the "greatness", at least not with Kansas City.

Clint Hurdle had a solid, if not spectacular, 10-year career in the majors. After getting out of Kansas City (and all those expectations), Hurdle did win a championship with the 1986 New York Mets (wayside: The '86 Mets were, possibly, the craziest baseball team ever. Read "The Bad Guys Won" by Jeff Pearlman. It's a fabulous inside look at baseball's loosest, loudest, most drug-infested and morally-questionable championship baseball team of the modern era).

Anyway, in 2001, my aunt, 48 at the time, got sick. Really sick. I remembered, growing up, that she told me Clint Hurdle was "so cute" and was her favorite Royal. In a city where George Brett was everyone's favorite athlete, I remembered that, even decades later.

To bring a little joy to my aunt, I went onto eBay and, for about $3, I bought the 1978 SI for someone in New Jersey. Then I sent the SI to Hurdle, then the first-base coach with the Rockies, to sign and mail back.

Clint Hurdle mailed the SI back to me, signed, within five days. Got it to my aunt right away. (By the way, she's fine now and living in Arizona.)

That spoke volumes to me about Hurdle's character. He didn't have to do that, much less do that so quickly.

The next year, Hurdle becomes manager of the Rockies. Turns out, he is also the father of a little girl named Madison. "Maddy" was born just three weeks after my son, Sam.

Yet I read that Madison is diagnosed with Prader-Willi Syndrome. What that essentially means is that Madison's body cannot tell when it is "full". Food has to be kept, literally, under lock and key.

Now as the manager of the Rockies, Clint Hurdle is in a high-stress, high-profile position. Because of Madison's (she's in the white shirt, on her father's left knee) constant need for medical care and various surgeries, Hurdle has to, often, miss his team's games to be with his family. I understand the Rockies management has been very supportive throughout all of this.



Even in this moment of "professional greatness", I still cannot imagine the everyday battles the Hurdle family must overcome for parts of the day that I take for granted. I'm bless to have two healthy, wonderful children, a beautiful and supportive wife, a enjoyable job and a city I love living in.

Yet, as I've watched the Rockies' games in the playoffs, Madison isn't too far from my mind. I hope that Colorado's deep run into October does raise more awareness about Prader-Willi, a disease that strikes only 1 in about 12,000 but one that requires constant attention.

So, if you need a team to root for in the playoffs, join the Purple and Black.