Baseball In The Daytime: Opening Day (Rocky Mountain Version)

Last October, the nation (or the tiny sliver of it that still cares about baseball, anyway) trained its eyes the brick-and-steel edifice in Lower Downtown Denver that serves as the home of the Colorado Rockies. Most were surprised--that Coors Field was not a bandbox, that a humidor and a halfway decent pitching staff could keep scores in the single digits, that no one had murdered the purple dinosaur. And those eyes are back today, as the Rockies return home for the first time since they lost the fourth and final game of the Fall Classic.

I'm sure they'll raise a pennant, and hand out rings or bracelets or whatever you get for finishing second. The stands will be full, and bucketfulls of high-altitude sunshine will pour down upon the pink shoulders of folks hungry to get outside. There's not much better than Opening Day (Version 3.5b), even if it comes after you nearly got swept by the lousy Cardinals.

But hey, crazy shit is happening all over baseball. Trey Hillman is the greatest manager in the history of the sport, and my boy Johnny Cueto is a superhuman strikeout machine. So enjoy your moment in the sun, Denver, and everybody else feel free to take in a little Baseball In The Daytime...

Chicago White Sox @ Detroit, 11:05 Mountain The Tigers, having been declawed and roughed up by the Royals, welcome another AL Central foe at Comerica today. At some point this seemingly potent Detroit lineup has to knock somebody around, and it might as well be Jose Contreras. With the retirement of Fidel Castro, Contreras is the oldest Cuban still earning a paycheck. Today he'll battle the bespectacled Nate Robertson for outs.

San Francisco @ Milwaukee, 12:05 The Dirty Sanchez makes its way to the shores of Lake Michigan today, as young Jonathan sends his nasty filth plateward for the G-Men. Your Brewers, who took two out of three at Wrigley this week, give the pill to Charlie Carlos Villanueva, who does not look like the singer from Midnight Oil.

Houston @ Chicago Cubs, 12:20 Once again both Windy City teams are in action under the Midwestern sunshine, and the Cubbie faithful are hoping for better results out of this opponent. The Astros and Chris Sampson challenge Rich Hill at the Friendly Confines, where watching a baseball game used to cost a dime. Today, more.

Arizona @ Colorado, 2:05 This one's your highlight, folks. Find this game on the tube or the series of tubes and watch the Rockies brag about winning last year's NLCS over these same D'Bags. This is the first honest-to-goodness rivalry in the history of this franchise, and we've even got the requisite heroes and villains. Good guys: Helton, Holliday, Tulo, Francis, who "play the game the right way." Bad guys: Webb, Upton, Byrnes, The Unit, who spit on little kids, rough up women, don't run out ground balls and generally piss on the national pastime. They may even wear throwback white and black cowboy hats for this one, and I'm praying for a bench-clearing fracas of some sort.

Keep your head on a swivel, enjoy the games, and Play Ball!

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