Don't Need no Teef to Chew This Beef; or, What's Behind the Monforts' Meat Curtains?
Krieger is my favorite local columnist, because he eschews the manichean, fireball-throwing style of our town's own Skip Bayless, Mark Kiszla; because he doesn't ignore the point to try for(ced) cleverness ala the legendarily awful Bernie Lincicome and, not least, because he can write a complete, non-gibberish sentence, unlike Woody fucking Paige. But even so, he has his weak spots. His endless defenses of Bernie Bickerstaff, for instance. Bick helped destroy what was left of an ascendant Nuggets squad in the late '90s and has been since the anti-Midas, turning each program he touches to shit, but Krieger can be reliably counted on to produce a pro-Bernie or Where is Bernie Now? column once per annum. And, of course, his affection for the Monforts.
The Monfort family, for the two of you reading this out of state, made its fortune raising beef. Its Greeley plant has, for decades, been mostly responsible for the particular odor enjoyed by residents of that fair town. Look--I enjoy a good steak as much as the next guy. (Unless the next guy is Paul McCartney, and if it was, then I'd have to mention how much I liked his work with the Beatles but man, Wings sucked, and that dancing ukulele or mandolin or whatever commercial for Starbucks just gags me out.) I've even had some, er, fun in Greeley over the years with friends who went to UNC. I have fond memories of Broncos camps and Vanilla malts.
And to their credit, they did--to use the phrase that Jim Armstrong uses every single damn time he talks about this--ride in on their figurative white horse to save major league baseball in Denver after the original investors turned out to be charlatans. Good for them, good for us.
But the intervening years have been one long downward slide. And this season's semi-competence aside, don't look for it to get much better. They have committed themselves to being a small-salary team, they don't say what they do with the extra cash baseball gives 'em and they generally let their best players walk. They're prepared to do so again with Matt Holliday, who is set to enter free agency two years from now.
Yet there's Krieger, calling Holliday unsung and unappreciated...by the fans. That's right. The fans. He says that fans are gun shy about committing to a player who might not be here in a few years--ok, that I agree with. But do the fans market players? Do the fans build ad campaigns to raise public awareness of the potentially great outfielder in town, campaigns aimed at least partially at stickin' a few more All-Star votes in for the guy? Management, it seems, has already given up on Holliday. So why should Rockies fans care about a guy that the brass has already signalled to be as good as gone?
Krieger seems to think that Rockies fans have no honorable duty but to grimly soldier into the ballyard day after sunny day to watch a team that wants to be the Twins or A's, but can't figure out how. I know he must be buddies with the owners, since every year he claims to make a dinner bet with Charlie Monfort based on how the squad does, but the time to urge patience is long past.
It may not be smart to tie up your entire payroll in one guy, but financial baseball isn't smart. It's the Wild Fucking West. Figure out a way to get it done and do it, or Holliday will become yet another stinging reminder of management's permanent cheapness and ineptitude. For Rockies fans, it must be like living in the old Soviet Union. You know it sucks, everyone you know knows that it sucks, but you know that it's going to suck forever, and why? Because status quo sucking works for the guys at the very top. It's a simple formula: the Monforts make money and don't like pumping it back into the product.
So, adios, Matt Holliday. Adios, future Rockies (Ian Stewart, maybe?) with the temerity to be good. Our modern-era Connie Macks don't need you.
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