I’ve been a Colorado Rockies fan for exactly a week, having jumped on their bandwagon just as the excitement was starting to build here in Denver last weekend.  A pair of skybox tickets for the second of three games against the Diamondbacks dropped into my wife’s lap, and so there we were at Coor’s Field last Saturday night, feasting on brats and beer, and high-fiving real fans every time a Rocky crossed the plate. A day earlier, odds that the Colorado team would see any post-season action were remote and sinking, since the Diamondbacks had already taken the first game of the series.

At that point, to reach the divisional playoffs on a wild card, the Rockies needed to win the two remaining games, while elsewhere the Padres would have to lose twice to the lowly Brewers. To the amazement of all, that’s exactly what happened. And now, with a show of determination, panache, luck and daring that has produced one of the most spectacular streaks in the history of baseball, the Rockies have won 16 of their last 17 games, including two playoff games last week in their five-game series against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Whiz Kids

Before the series with Philly got under way, I wasn’t sure how my loyalties would divide. I was a big Phillies fan as a kid, (mutating into an even bigger Pirates fan from 1960 on) and one of the biggest thrills of my young life was taking the Phillies Special train from Atlantic City to Connie Mack Stadium. My heroes back then were Robin Roberts, Richie Ashburn, Stan Lopata, Harry Anderson, Ed Bouchee and a burly, former White Sox player named Carl Sawatski, who will be remembered, if at all, as the only catcher in the game who didn't wear a chest protector.  I remember him as a home-runner hitter, though, since, the first time he came to the plate in the first-ever Phillies game I can recall attending, he hit a line shot over the scoreboard in left centerfield.

But the Phillies who took to the field last week against the Rockies were unrecognizable to me. So much so, that when shortstop Kaz Matsui hit a grand slam to all but clinch Thursday’s playoff game for the Rockies, I rang up an old Atlantic City chum – still a diehard Phillies fan after all these years --to ask whether he was enjoying the game. (He wasn’t.)

Sinking Fast

I haven’t paid enough dues yet to qualify as a true Rockies fan, and the twelve seasons they spent going nowhere after the team was launched in 1995 didn’t faze me in the least. But they must be getting under my skin, since I found myself scouting the Yankees-Cleveland playoff game this afternoon, wondering how the Rockies’ “murderer’s row” is going to hit the 95-mile-an-hour sinker of Cleveland ace Fausto Carmona. Whatever the answer, there’s going to be a lot of great baseball this October.