Spring is here, and with the beautiful weather comes the start of the baseball season. The Rockies had their Home Opener today (which they won), and with it I wanted to re-tell a story from 2 & 1/2 years ago and re-iterate my plea for the Rockies to incorporate an important aspect of the game day experience into their game:
Back in 2007, when the Rockies were on their historic hot-streak, we went to the last game of the season. This turned out to be a pivotal game, which required the Rockies to win and the Padres to lose, which led to that 1-game playoff for the Wild Card. The atmosphere was amazing, and being a loyal Broncos fan I turned to my tailgating kit to help us prepare for this game. We brought out our well-used grill to cook some steaks, when we were approached by stadium security (who was an off-duty police officer). I was shocked to find out that Tailgating at Rockies Games are not allowed! The officer was really nice about it, and even made an editorial statement to the effect of “I don’t agree with the rule, but I need to enforce it.” He let us finish grilling our steaks, but made us put our tailgating equipment away. Sure that security had it wrong, I turned to their web site for the definitive word, and sure enough tailgating is not allowed:
Tailgating is not permitted in any Rockies operated parking lot. Persons may not consume alcohol in the parking lots, including inside their vehicles.
There are a lot of high expectations for the Rockies this year. Most analysts say playoffs are a given for the Blake Street Bombers, with the possibility of going deep into October. Rockies Management: do your part to make sure that your talented team have the passionate fans they deserve – allow tailgating for at least some games. It doesn’t have to be all 80 remaining home games, but at least the big ones: holidays, fan-favorite rivals, the inter-league games, and the late September games – that’s all we need.
It’s not like tailgating at baseball games are unheard of. I went by the Padres ballpark a few years ago, and they had a whole parking lot devoted to tailgating – sound familiar Broncos fans? I find it funny that if you do a search for “Rockies Tailgating” you’ll find a ton of product licensed by Major League Baseball, yet you’re not allowed to use it next to their stadium.
Seriously Rockies Front Office, let’s bring Tailgating in some form to Coors Field. If you need to rope up part of the lot and charge a little more, so be it.