In the epic words of Jerry Seinfeld, "What's the deal with purple jerseys?"

A lot of fuss was made last year when it leaked out that the team was going to discontinue the purple jerseys from their official kit lineup. The players hadn't worn them in about two years, and even back then they were only selected for a handful of games. I remember someone menitoning they might be auctioned off for charity at some event. Personally, I wasn't distraught over this. I like the jerseys, don't get me wrong, but 5 jerseys is WAY too many for a baseball team. I like kits where a team has more hat styles than jerseys. (See, St. Louis Cardinals official jerseys.)

Fast forward to this year. By my count, we've worn pinstripes twice this season. I don't catch highlights from every game (Thanks ESPN!), but it seems that every other game has featured the purple jerseys. On top of that, not once this year have the vests, black or pinstripe, been chosen. This is quite a shift from the product we saw on the field last year. Black dominated at home and on the road, and the "CR" pinstripe vests were extremely popular at home.

However, the product on the field is also PERFORMING much differently than last year. I'm a huge baseball fan, and grew up loving the game, so I recognize the importance of superstitions. Is this the impetus for the sudden love of the Purple Power Polo's? Most likely, as this is what happened in 2007 with the black vests.

So does anyone out there know what has caused this change? I am hypothesizing that a group of players got together and said this year is going to be different. I like when something like that happens. It's like they said we're still the Rockies, but we want to improve our performance from last year. To do that, we need to change. It starts with the jerseys, and infects a lot of other aspects of the play on the field. So far, so good.

Well, I was fogged in at work for three days and it changed my trip back to CO for the week.  During that time I spent a lot of time thinking about the Rockies and their season.  I was mostly trying to decide if we still have a chance to make it past October 3.  Because of my change in travel plans, I can see the Rockies play a few more times at home and maybe on the road for a series or two.  Before I do that, though, I want to make sure the Rockies will most likely still be in the hunt come the end of the season.

The current road trip has brought out some negatives of our team, but many positives still remain.  I will go over the major ones that have come to mind in my pondering over the past week.

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John Kruk was just on ESPN talking about the wild card.  He briefly broke down where every team stands, and finishes with, "this Wild Card race is the Braves' to lose.  They have the deepest pitching staff yada yada yada..."  I know we shouldn't be suprised, but the BRAVES??!?!?!  They're 4 WHOLE GAMES behind us!  Still, it's somehow not our race, even after the starting off this series decent.  We'll see if he changes his mind based on how we play the Dodge 'ems.

I guess it goes to show you that despite all we've done, we're still flying under the nations' radar somewhat.  I realize that this will not hurt us in any way, but it would be cool to get some recognition some time.  What are your thoughts?

Edit: Maybe he's saying that we're not in the race because we'll win our division? /jk

This weekend I will making my first trip to watch the Rockies on the road (besides being in school in Missouri and driving the short distance to Busch).  My brother and I are going to the Sat and Sun games in OAK and the Mon game in LA.  We have tickets, hotel reservations (Park Plaza in OAK and Airport Courtyard in LA), and plan to use public transportation/walking to get to games. 

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