After every Broncos game, my roommate and bitter, bitter enemy Monty and I sit in the living room and discuss what transpired with our beloved Denver Broncos in that day's gridiron competition. It's a ritual as predictable as the turning of the leaves, with Monty generally becoming so frustrated by my far inferior lack of football knowledge that he changes color and very often falls out of his tree. It's quite hilarious. Because when he's down on the ground, trying to regain his composure, often I will kick him mercilessly about the rib section, and very often he will spit up remnants of things he consumed over the weekend. Usually it's just booze, but one time there was a pog.
This past Sunday was no different — and we had quite a bit to discuss. The miraculous escape from defeat at the hands of the trashy, trash-fuck Oakland Raiders is a subject of which we rarely tire, and we discussed the day's feats long into the almost-autumn night. But this time, I threw Monty a curveball that he absolutely was not ready for.
"Truth be told," I said after a thorough breaking-down of the game, "I would be willing to sacrifice the Broncos season — indeed, not see them make the playoffs — in exchange for the Rockies making it to the post-season."
At this declaration, Monty turned a sort of purplish hue normally reserved for overripe fruit and collapsed to the carpet.
"That's fucking treason," Monty said, after restoring himself to working order. "You can't trade a Broncos season for a Rockies one. You just can't even think that way."
Well, I do think that way, Monty, and your rent just went up another $200. Friends, well-wishers, Broncos-nation men, I know this is not the type of thing you like to hear. Denver is a football city, and as such, the Broncos must always be the first team on anyone's mind, but I've recently reached an important, if depressing, conclusion: For people my age, people who came up believing in the father, son and holy Elway, there will never be another period in Broncos history as much fun as those two back-to-back Super Bowls. Sure, we will have more successes, but they won't be as good as being the team, the city that, after having suffered such humiliating defeats, no one thought could win — and then not only winning, but doing it in back-to-back seasons as a send-off to the greatest quarterback in the history of mankind. If we win a Super Bowl now, people will say, "Oh, yeah, Denver. Big deal — you're supposed to win Super Bowls." Back then, it wasn't even in the realm of possibility.
And you know what no one even considered possible at the beginning of this baseball season? Seeing your Colorado Rockies in the playoffs. I know, I know, Adam, don't jinx it for us, and don't worry, I'm not. As I'm writing this, I'm simultaneously knocking on wood, making it incredibly difficult to type. But this season, the kid Rockies have grown up and registered as a relevant blip on the baseball radar, an enormous step up from being the laughingstock of the majors so very recently, and one that could use the emphatic exclamation point of a post-season berth. I don't even need the Rockies to win a playoff game (though if they make it, you will no doubt see a column promising World Series victory, since hope springs eternal in the What's So Funny camp. It has to. Otherwise, I would be forced to believe that I'm never going to lose my virginity). Just seeing them in the playoffs would be reward enough.
I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Adam, you're only writing this in another lame attempt to get Matt Holliday to play catch with you because your first attempt was completely ignored, and that was really rude of Matt Holliday, but he still has time to make it up to you, and he really should make a point of doing that, because it's the right thing to do." And that's a good thing for you to be thinking, but I don't need to play catch with Holliday anymore. The reason I came up with this cosmic sports-swap of throwing the Broncos under the bus for the sake of the Rockies is because the way I feel right now reminds me of how much fun I had watching the Broncos charge toward those Super Bowls. And besides, it's Tulowitzki I want to throw with now.
To be a Rockies fan and see your team in playoff contention in the middle of September is truly an incredible feeling, one that deserves some sort of post-season justification. So, Rockies fans, get behind me on this one, and let's collectively will our boys into October. And Broncos fans, of which I assure you I am one, I'm sorry it had to come to this. But sometimes it just makes me happy to see Monty sad.
