49 Fun Facts About Colorado Rockies

The Rockies joined the National League in 1993 alongside which other expansion team?

Florida Marlins: in 1991 the National League picked Denver and South Florida from a shortlist that also had Buffalo, Orlando, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Washington, and each new club paid a $95 million entry fee.

Where did the Rockies play their first two seasons while Coors Field was built?

Mile High Stadium had been built for minor-league baseball in 1948 before growing into the Broncos' football home, so the game was coming back: 80,227 squeezed in for the Rockies' first home game.

The 1993 Rockies broke the single-season MLB attendance record set a year earlier by which team?

Toronto Blue Jays crowds had set the mark at just over four million in 1992; a first-year team in a borrowed football stadium passed it on its 71st home date and finished at 4,483,350, unmatched through 2025.

Who in Denver had used the name 'Rockies' before the ballclub adopted it?

An NHL team: hockey's Colorado Rockies played in Denver from 1976 until 1982, when they moved east and became the New Jersey Devils; baseball picked the name back up nine years later.

Which trucking magnate saved the Rockies franchise in 1992 after an ownership scandal?

Jerry McMorris, who ran a Colorado trucking firm, joined two other local businessmen in buying out the out-of-state partners seven months before the first game, after a fraud scandal engulfed the original lead investor.

In 1999 the Rockies and Padres played MLB's first season opener held outside the US and Canada, in which city?

Monterrey's ballpark drew 27,104 for the opener, and Colorado won 8-2 as Vinny Castilla, the Rockies' Mexican third baseman, delighted the crowd with four hits.

The Rockies' first pick in the 1992 expansion draft was which pitcher from the Braves system?

David Nied was picked while more than 20,000 fans watched the draft on screens in a Denver hall; the intended ace won 14 games in two seasons, hurt his elbow in 1995 and never won for Colorado again.

Which second baseman hit a leadoff home run in the first inning of the Rockies' first home game in 1993?

Eric Young was a base-stealer, not a slugger, yet he homered in the Rockies' very first home at-bat; a record crowd of 80,227 then watched Colorado beat Montreal 11-4.

Who was the Rockies' first manager, named NL Manager of the Year in 1995?

Don Baylor, the American League's MVP as a player in 1979, took the Rockies to the playoffs in only their third season; no expansion team had ever reached October before its eighth.

Which first baseman hit .370 in 1993, the first batting title for an expansion-team player?

Andrés Galarraga had hit just .243 for St. Louis the year before; the Cardinals' hitting coach, hired as Colorado's first manager, urged the new club to sign him, and he became the first Venezuelan batting champion.

The 1995 Rockies' four 30-homer hitters were nicknamed the Bombers of which Denver thoroughfare?

Blake Street is Coors Field's address, and 1995 was the ballpark's first season: four Rockies hitters each cleared 30 home runs there in a schedule the players' strike had cut to 144 games.

Which of the Rockies' four 1995 'Bombers' led the National League with 40 home runs?

Dante Bichette finished second in that year's MVP vote; back in April he had christened Coors Field by winning its first game with a three-run homer in the 14th inning.

Who became the first Rockies player to win the NL MVP award, in 1997?

Larry Walker grew up in British Columbia dreaming of being an NHL goaltender and barely played baseball as a boy; in 1997 he became the first Canadian ever voted MVP.

Mark McGwire hit a 510-foot blast, but who won the 1998 Home Run Derby at Coors Field?

Ken Griffey Jr. had planned to sit the contest out, changed his mind after the Denver crowd booed him during batting practice, and then beat Jim Thome in the final.

Todd Helton's 2000 run at .400 recalled which player's 1980 chase?

George Brett was still at .400 in September 1980 before finishing at .390; Helton faded sooner but won the batting title at .372, with 59 doubles and 147 runs batted in.

Todd Helton played which position for the University of Tennessee football team?

Quarterback: Helton became Tennessee's starter in 1994 when the senior ahead of him was hurt, then injured his own knee three weeks later and lost the job for good to a freshman named Peyton Manning.

Todd Helton entered the Hall of Fame in 2024 alongside which former Rockies manager?

Jim Leyland managed Colorado for a single season, 1999, and later said he regretted taking the job; an era committee elected him, and he was inducted the same day as his old first baseman.

The purple seats in the 20th row of Coors Field's upper deck mark what?

One mile above sea level: the rest of the seats are dark green, and the single purple row sits exactly 5,280 feet up, marking the altitude that makes batted balls carry so far in Denver.

To cut down on home runs at altitude, Coors Field stores baseballs in what?

A humidor, approved by MLB in May 2002: baseballs dry out and harden in Denver's air, so the Rockies store them in damper conditions and they come off the bat with less bounce.

The Rockies' mascot Dinger is what creature, inspired by fossils found at Coors Field?

A triceratops: builders digging the ballpark's foundations turned up dinosaur bone fragments, so the club's purple mascot 'hatched' from a giant egg on the field in April 1994.

The Rockies' team colour purple was inspired by a line from which song?

America the Beautiful: its purple-mountains line came to Katharine Lee Bates after a trip up Pikes Peak in 1893, while she was teaching a summer term in Colorado Springs.

Which Dodgers pitcher threw the only no-hitter at hitter-friendly Coors Field through 2025, back in 1996?

Hideo Nomo won 9-0 that September night, in the very week the Rockies set a modern record for runs scored at home; no pitcher has matched him there in the three decades since.

The lettering on the Rockies' 2022 green City Connect uniforms was taken from what?

Colorado license plates, with their green mountains and plain block type, inspired the jersey, which the club launched with players photographed at 11,990-foot Loveland Pass; a new design replaced it in 2025.

Which pitcher did the Rockies sign to an eight-year, $121 million deal after the 2000 season?

Mike Hampton's contract was the richest in baseball history for exactly two days, until Alex Rodriguez signed his; by 2002 he was 7-15 with a 6.15 ERA, and the Rockies traded him away.

The Rockies' 2007 run to the pennant, winning 21 of 22 games, was nicknamed what?

Rocktober really began in mid-September: the Rockies won 13 of 14 just to force a tiebreaker, won that too, then swept two playoff series, making 21 wins in 22 games over 29 days.

The Rockies' 2007 'Game 163' tiebreaker was a 9-8, 13-inning win over which team?

San Diego Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, then baseball's career saves leader, was handed a two-run lead in the 13th and gave up three; the winner scored on a head-first slide that may never have touched the plate.

The Rockies' only World Series appearance through 2025, in 2007, ended in a sweep by which team?

Boston Red Sox ace Josh Beckett struck out the first four batters of the opener; Colorado, winners of 21 of 22, had gone cold during an eight-day wait, the longest layoff in postseason history.

Which Rockies hitter was named 2007 NLCS MVP after his three-run homer in the clinching game against Arizona?

Matt Holliday was also that year's National League batting champion, and two weeks earlier it was his disputed head-first slide that had scored the run sending Colorado into the playoffs.

Which Rockies shortstop turned an unassisted triple play against the Braves in April 2007?

Troy Tulowitzki, a rookie, caught a line drive behind second, stepped on the bag and tagged the runner coming from first, only the 13th unassisted triple play in major-league history.

Which pitcher threw the first no-hitter in Rockies history, against the Braves in April 2010?

Ubaldo Jiménez walked six in the first five innings, then switched to pitching from the stretch and never walked another batter; a diving catch by Dexter Fowler in the seventh kept the bid alive.

Which third baseman won a Gold Glove in each of his first eight seasons with Colorado from 2013?

Nolan Arenado won as a rookie in 2013, something no rookie third baseman had done since 1957, and the streak was still alive when Colorado traded him to St. Louis in 2021; it reached ten.

Which team beat the Rockies in a 2018 tiebreaker game, the second of four games in four cities?

Los Angeles Dodgers won it 5-2; Colorado then won an extra-inning elimination game in Chicago and opened the next round in Milwaukee, its fourth city and fourth opponent in five days.

Through 2025 the Rockies had reached the postseason five times, always in what manner?

As a wild card every time: 1995, 2007, 2009, 2017 and 2018. Colorado has never finished first in its division; the nearest miss came in 2018, when it lost a one-game playoff for the title.

The 2025 Rockies lost 119 games, tying which club's 2003 total for third-most in the modern era?

Detroit Tigers of 2003 also went 43-119; Colorado was outscored by 424 runs, the worst differential since the 19th century, and fired its winningest manager, Bud Black, after a 7-33 start.

Which meatpacking family, in control since the mid-2000s, still owned the Rockies in 2025?

The Monforts sold the family beef business to ConAgra in 1987; brothers Charlie and Dick joined the Rockies' ownership in the 1990s, and in 2025 Dick's son was promoted to help run the club.

The Rockies' spring training home, opened in 2011 in Scottsdale, is shared with which team?

Arizona Diamondbacks and Rockies both left Tucson for the shared complex in 2011; it stands on Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community land, billed as the first major-league park built on tribal land.

Which pitcher was the Rockies' only NL Rookie of the Year through 2025, winning in 2002?

Jason Jennings went 16-8 that year; in his first big-league game the previous August he had thrown a complete-game shutout and hit a home run, something no player had ever done in a debut.

The 2021 All-Star Game was played at Coors Field after MLB moved it out of which city?

Atlanta lost the game after Georgia passed a new election law that spring; Denver stepped in with about three months' notice, 23 years after hosting the highest-scoring All-Star Game ever played.

The Rockies' 2007 World Series ticket sale collapsed within an hour, which the club blamed on what?

A denial-of-service attack was the club's claim after 8.5 million hits in 90 minutes froze the online-only sale; baseball's own web chief blamed ticket-hunting bots, and a second try sold 50,000 seats in hours.

Which Rockies manager was fired in May 2009 and replaced by Jim Tracy, who won Manager of the Year?

Clint Hurdle had taken Colorado to the 2007 World Series, but he was let go with the team at 18-28; under his bench coach the same players went 74-42 the rest of the way and reached the playoffs.

The Rockies' second City Connect uniform, new in 2025, splits light blue and purple to evoke what?

Day turning to night is the idea behind a look the club branded 'Sunrise to Sunset'; the split jersey replaced a green design that had lasted only three seasons.

Which outfielder won the 2017 NL batting title for Colorado?

Charlie Blackmon hit .331 and, despite batting leadoff, drove in more runs than any leadoff hitter before him; with DJ LeMahieu's title a year earlier, Colorado had back-to-back batting champions.

A 2006 USA Today report claimed Rockies management had instituted what in the clubhouse?

A Christian code of conduct, the paper said, with Bibles in and men's magazines out; players pushed back the next day, one saying some of his best teammates were 'the furthest thing from Christian'.

The Rockies' first game was a 3-0 loss on April 5, 1993, at which ballpark?

Shea Stadium's Mets sent out Dwight Gooden, who shut the newcomers out; four days later more than 80,000 people turned up in Denver to watch the Rockies' first home game.

Coors Field opened in 1995 on the edge of which historic Denver warehouse district?

LoDo, short for Lower Downtown, was a quarter of old warehouses; by the time the ballpark opened at its edge it had filled with bars, restaurants and galleries.

Which Rockies executive, president from 2001 until his death in 2010, is honoured at Coors Field with his initials?

Keli McGregor, a former NFL tight end, died suddenly on a business trip in April 2010, of a rare virus that had attacked his heart; his initials hang beside the retired numbers.

Which Rockies outfielder won the 2010 NL batting title and completed a cycle that summer with a walk-off homer?

Carlos González led the league at .336 and finished third in the MVP vote; against the Cubs he needed a home run to finish the cycle and hit it in the ninth inning to win the game 6-5.

In 2012 which 49-year-old Rockies left-hander became the oldest pitcher ever to win a major-league game?

Jamie Moyer set the record that April, 26 years after his first big-league win, then broke it himself a month later in a game where he also became the oldest player to drive in a run.

Which Rockies shortstop began his career in 2016 by homering in each of his first four major-league games?

Trevor Story's first big-league hit was a three-run homer off Zack Greinke on Opening Day, and he hit another in his next at-bat; he finished with 27, a National League record for a rookie shortstop.