The Coors Curse

So dangerous is Coors Field to pitchers that the place should come with a surgeon general's warning. It's not just that the thin air in Denver turns fly balls into home runs, or that pop-ups, flares, bloops and bleeders routinely fall for hits in an outfield so big that not even Magellan could traverse it, or that runners take extra bases with impunity, or that the diminished pull of gravity renders breaking balls flatter than Magic Johnson's late-night gig. Worse than all that, it actually hurts to pitch in the mile-high home of the Colorado Rockies.

"You have to work so hard to pitch at Coors that the next day I'm more sore than after pitching anywhere else," says Atlanta Braves lefthander Tom Glavine. "I'm talking physically sore. All over. You have to work so hard to keep your breaking ball down and sink your fastball that it wears you out. You have to work so hard to finish every pitch. I can't imagine having to pitch a whole year there."

The Rockies have tried 61 pitchers in their five-plus years of existence, the past 3½ with Coors Field as their home after two seasons at Mile High Stadium. Not one of those pitchers has proved it's possible to win and stay healthy in Denver. Not one starter has pitched three consecutive seasons without being hurt or sent to the minors. They are a bunch of sore losers. "All things being equal," Glavine said before getting toasted at Coors in the All-Star Game last week, "I would never choose to pitch here."

Darryl Kile did choose to pitch at Coors, which is like booking a vacation to Beirut. A 19-game winner with the Houston Astros last year, the righthander rejected an offer of $21 million over three years to stay in Houston, where he had a career ERA of 3.51 at the spacious and climate-controlled Astrodome—more than half a run better than his ERA in all other parks combined. For $3 million more Kile tapped the Rockies. Think of it as combat pay.

In the tradition of Bryn Smith, Greg Harris, Bruce Hurst, Marvin Freeman, Billy Swift, Bret Saberhagen and Pedro Astacio, Kile has been a qualified bust. Not until last Friday night, his seventh start at Coors, did Kile win a game at home. That 11-2 victory over the San Francisco Giants improved his record to a still unsightly 6-11 with a 4.95 ERA, including 1-4 with a 6.46 ERA at Coors. "Mark Grace once asked me, 'Why would you choose to go pitch someplace where there's no gravity?' " says Kile's agent, Barry Axelrod. "We said, 'Hey, maybe it's not Coors Field and maybe it's not the altitude. Maybe it's making quality pitches and being healthy.' ...Or maybe not."

The Coors curse puts extra pressure on a Rockies general manager who is always looking for more pitching. "The first thing I have to do is find out how a guy has pitched here—you tell me, what other general manager has to do that?" says Bob Gebhard, whose job security is under question these days. At week's end Colorado was languishing in fourth place with its worst record since its inaugural season.

Former Rockies pitchers Hurst, Saberhagen, Smith, Swift, Andy Ashby and Willie Blair have all been 15-game winners or All-Stars, just not in Colorado. The greatest pitcher in Rockies history—try using that title to get a table at the Rainbow Room—is righthander Kevin Ritz, who is 39-38 since being selected in the expansion draft. In 1996 he won 17 games while becoming the franchise's only pitcher to throw more than 200 innings in a season. Then he blew out his shoulder last July, came back in May, went 0-2 and returned to the disabled list. At week's end the Rockies had more pitchers on the DL (five) than in their rotation (four). Last year they put nearly an entire staff (nine pitchers) on the DL.

Gebhard likes to point out that many pitchers have been shelved by "freak injuries" not related to pitching. (In '94 Kent Bottenfield was walking past a pitching machine when it misfired and an errant ball broke his hand.) But former Rockies pitching coach Larry Bearnarth notes, "Very seldom do you get a one-two-three, 10-pitch inning. It just doesn't happen. There are many, many more stress innings when you're pitching there."

Coors can wear down even the best pitchers, as the All-Star Game proved. Sixteen All-Stars combined to throw 362 pitches, including an outlandish 214 by the National League's best. Ten of those 16 pitchers gave up at least one run in the American League's 13-8 victory, including Glavine, who needed 57 pitches to get four outs while surrendering four runs.

Put the Braves' Fab Four in Coors and even they wouldn't be so fabulous. In 17 combined starts there, Glavine, Greg Maddux, John Smoltz and Denny Neagle are 7-6 with a 5.73 ERA while getting lit for a .328 batting average. Those numbers include two shutouts thrown by Glavine—which is as many as all of Colorado's starters have thrown in the park's 277-game history. (One was last year by Roger Bailey, who hasn't pitched an inning this season because of a back injury.)