A Rocky Start In Denver

Dear Pops,

Well, Angie and me made it. We drove all the way from Queens to Colorado to see the Mets' opener. We wanted to see them get off to a good start and see if this new Coors Field is any good, and, besides, I still got that problem with the warrant.

Anyways, you would not believe the things we saw. First off, these Colorado people are Grade A suckers. On Wednesday, the day of the opener, there was five inches of snow on the ground, and at game time, 5:35, it was 39�. So me and Angie figured we'd take two choice ducats off some poor sap for the price of a hot pastrami on rye, because who wants to watch a game in that? But we get there, and there's already a line waiting at the gate—and some people had been there since two in the morning!

You know how attendance was down by like, half, all over the country for Opening Day? Well, this Coors Field place didn't quite sell out, but it came within 3,000 of it, which isn't bad for getting people to come sit in a freezer and do Popsicle impersonations. And it wasn't like nobody hadn't seen it yet. Counting exhibitions, this was the seventh game there already! Me and Angie's seats were pretty high, but we didn't mind because the stands are so close to the field that we were practically looking down at the buttons on the players' hats, and, besides, Angie had downtown Denver off her right shoulder and I had the Rocky Mountains off my left.

Pops, I gotta say, this Coors Field ain't bad. It's got all the cool old-time stuff, like a hand-operated scoreboard in rightfield, and all the cool new stuff, like one of those microbrew pubs just beyond rightfield. Only thing was, we were freezing because all we had on were our leather jackets, and everybody else looked like they were ready to hit the slopes.

When it got dark it just got colder, and, still, me and Angie couldn't move down to a better seat because almost nobody left, all of them smiling and beating on their ski coats to clap and keep warm at the same time. You gotta cancel the game to get them to leave, and I bet you could cancel one and still get 15,000. There was so much good feeling in that ballpark, what with the field full of marching bands and Little League teams and the whole place belting out Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh-inning stretch that I felt a real desire in my heart to hurl. I tried to tell Angie, but she was singing too loud.

And the worst thing of it was, the stupid Rockies beat us. See, they're like those new cars out now—they got their own crumple zone, and it goes: Larry Walker hitting third, Andres Galarraga fourth and Dante Bichette fifth. Those guys wrecked us for six hits, including four doubles and a homer, and eight RBIs. Three times we were within an out or two of winning—the ninth, the 13th and the 14th—and all three times the Rockies stayed alive.

In the 14th inning the seats were still half full, even though they'd stopped serving beer seven innings before that. The fans sang during a second seventh-inning stretch, and then this guy Bichette beat us by jacking a three-run homer into left, and who do you think catches it but Angie herself. And just about then I look over at some maniac wearing only a T-shirt that reads, BICHETTE HAPPENS.

Anyway, these people got no clue how to be real baseball fans. I just wanted to write and tell you that and also ask you to mail us our stuff. I can't get Angie to leave.
Yours, Vinnie