Year round sports in GJ: Rockies create “sports haven”

Grand Junction has finally done something right.

When The City of Grand Junction announced that the Casper Ghosts, the Colorado Rockies Pioneer League farm team, would be moving to Grand Junction for the upcoming season, I was thrilled. This is going to be a good thing for this town, especially because it’ll bring something new to the city that people will get excited about.

Minor league baseball has one of the best atmospheres in all of sports. Sitting in the first three rows of the stadium at a professional ballpark will cost you, but tickets to the newly crowned Grand Junction Rockies are going to be so cheap. That means you can load up on beer, which will also be served at games. They give things away at minor league games, and there’s actually a good chance you’ll win something. Professional players on their injury rehab will come play here. Last year, Todd Helton made a rehab appearance for the Ghosts, so it’s possible that high-caliber players will end up in Grand Junction.

Another reason that this team should be a success here is that Minor League teams are really good at promotional nights. The Detroit Tigers minor league team held a cash drop, where they dropped 1,000 dollars onto the field after the game, and fans could go run and collect as much money as they could in five minutes. Who could forget team Snuggie night at a number of stadiums across the country? Sponsors of the team also give away cool things like used cars and season tickets.

Of course, if there is one thing that is not exciting about the team moving here, it’s the team name. Showing no originality or trying to market the city of Grand Junction, they stuck with the name Rockies. The whole point of farm teams is to come up with wacky names, like the Modesto Nuts, or the Tennessee Smokies.  The majority of the team names are names that play to their host cities’ major attractions. Why couldn’t the city and the Monfort brothers, the Rockies’ owners, come up with something more exciting than the Grand Junction Rockies?

It may take some time for the city to get excited about the team, and that’s to be expected. But the transition from CMU’s baseball season to the Grand Junction Rockies, to JUCO, to CMU football is going to make this city a sports haven. Now, people don’t have to trek to Denver to watch the Rockies, they can just stay here.

Hopefully, the team can bring some pride to Grand Junction, and the GJ Rockies can become a permanent attraction.

hrutt@mavs.coloradomesa.edu

Categorised in: Sports

This post was written by critedev