I’m no Joe Torre but everyone has a story

January 26, 2009

1/26/09

Wow how time flies, I was looking at the old blog entry count and noticed that this entry is number 199 for the Rockpile Rant.

Notice: It looks like one of my buddies who was going to Tucson with us has to cancel. If your interested in this trip contact me. As I’ve said before there would be an interview process (to guage your coolness), but we’re not too picky.

The travel dates are from Feb 23-March 4.

                                      Chapter 1:  A Ranter is born.

I’m going to tell you how the Rockpile Ranter was born. My alter ego is a combination of several things. I’ll start with the Ranter bit. For most of my life I have had to be subordinate to someone who at some point took their power to far or was just a complete jackass with their authority.

I always felt compelled to bottle up what I wanted to say or how I felt, either out of respect or position. It’s not that I was afraid to say what was on my mind, I kept my mouth shut because it was usually the smart thing to do at the time.

 Then when I reached the point when I was ready to “speak my mind”, I didn’t because I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Truth be told, the one who was hurting was myself.

Every person and situation is unique and before I became a blogger, I would vent on friends and family. Not the full out explode in your face vents, but smaller more manageable vents. What I would call ” a short little rant”.

They would often start out like: “Does this piss you off too?”. Then I’d go on from there, but only ranting on one topic and making it quick. Usually people would agree with me. Whether they did or didn’t, a conversation of some sort would usually ensue.

This his how I viewed it, I was being  friendly to another human by striking up a conversation, and at the same time I was able vent off something that had been bothering me.

 I don’t vent much on people directly anymore, I don’t need to.

 I have “The Rant” now and I have the ability to immediately write about something that bothers me or moves me, impresses me or depresses, stimulates my brain or leaves me writhing in pain, touches my soul or leaves me down in a hole.

I can release it in word format, then after I’ve heard a group opinion on the subject…Be done with it and “Keep on Truckin”.

 “You got to keep on rolling while you can, eventually we all run out of hill” Official Ranter Quote.

The Rockpile part of the blog name is simpler. I usually purchase Rockpile tickets, see that’s pretty simple.

                                 Here’s how this all ties in together: 

 It was the third week in September 2007 and the Rockies were “HOT”, and still not getting any National love or attention. This really frustrated me and some other fans that I know. 

It was at that point I knew I had to do something.  I didn’t know exactly what or how, but I felt somehow I had to get The Rockies some National love.

                                  Fast forward to Rockies Spring Training 2008.

When I was in Tucson for spring training last year I only had five days off. Two of those days were spent driving there and back. When I arrived in Tucson I managed to catch one practice, but it was only the AAA players. I saw two games in two days both of them at Hi Corbett Field. Rockies won one and lost one. 

Remember now, this was the spring training after the Rockies had made it to the World Series.

I guess I thought that right after a World Series appearance spring training games would be sold out. This was not the case at all, both games had more empty seats than not.

I sat there in my nearly empty row and couldn’t believe the Rockies had done so much, and went so far and still were getting minimal fan love and National exposure.

As I pondered what to do on that sunny afternoon in March wearing my newly purchased big green floppy hat (it was recommended to me by a local for sun block), and my previously purchased Todd Helton World Series jersey an idea popped into my head.

I had previously been interested in starting a blog about my own daily rants, so I thought to myself, why not write a blog about the Rockies and incorporate my “attitude” into it.

I needed a name. A name that represented me and my team. I tossed around blogs name for the entire drive back to Denver with no luck.

For a few years I had been a regular reader of Zack Hample’s blog “The Baseball Collector” (still am). This dudes obsessed with snagging baseballs at batting practice and catching live game baseballs.

Anyways I was tired of reading about his success and I had decided after we lost the World Series that I would try to arrive early for batting practice. I snagged a baseball at my first batting practice and now I NEVER miss it. To me it’s as much a part of the game as eating peanuts, the seventh inning stretch, or standing in line to take a whiz.

I experimented with a couple of blogging formats before I came across MLBlogs.com.  I was sitting in front of my computer stuck at the point where I had to come up with a blog name for this blog. I started to think of the Rockies Rockpile and knew that word had to be part of it’s name. 

                                A few of the blog names I tossed around were:

Rockpile Style, Rockpile Ralph, D’s Rockpile Report, DR-ockpile, Rock-n-Roll Pile, and A Rock-n-Pile. All of those names are winners in their own right, but didn’t quite convey the message I was trying to get out there.

Then I thought,”The Rockpile Rambler”, I dismissed that one because I’m more of a Ranter than a Rambler. Yeah, Rockpile Rant, I typed it in and have owned it and a few variations of it since.

                                          Chapter 2: It’s up to you.

So now you know where I came from  and you already know where I’m heading. I’m going for number one spot. I don’t want to “OWN” it, I just want to feel it up a little bit…D
 

Written by RANTER Posted in Ranter's Blog Entries Tagged with 2007 World Series, Colorado Rockies, Rockies, Spring Training, Tucson