Basking at Coors Field

Or is it basking IN Coors Field? Whatever is correct, it was pretty spectacular to have great seats for the first Rockies' win of the season Saturday night, a 3-1 win over the visiting Arizona Diamondbacks. Coming on the heels of Friday's 7-6 loss, the game featured an excellent pitching effort by Jorge DeLa Rosa and offensive heroics by Chris Iannetta, who is one of the keys to the season for Colorado.

Iannetta clouted a home run off Dodgers' ace Clayton Kershaw a few nights later to account for Rockies win number two. He was joined in the home run parade by Troy Tulowitzski, who got his first hit of the season, also off Kershaw, and also a home run. It would be nice to see Tulo go on another home run tear, like he did last year, with 15 homers in the final month.

Anyway, it was great to be at the ballpark. Along with my wife and son, I watched from spectacular seats behind home plate in the second deck, on the rail. Aside from the view of the sun setting over the Rockies, I enjoyed the sights and sounds of the ballpark (all except the wave). In the old days, visitors to a ballpark were hit by co-mingled smells of stogies, beer and food. Today, with tobacco products banned from the park, the smell is mostly heavenly barbecue. Not sure who can afford $6 cups of beer, but plenty is sold.

It seems I am never bored at the ballpark. It is simply a wonderful way to enjoy a warm night, but you have to have decent seats away from unruly fans. You don't have a lot of control over this, but it's nice to be in a section with home-team fans, and especially not Phillies fans. We experienced Phillies fans last year during the makeup of a rained-out game late in the season. An early Rockies lead was wiped out by a nine-run Phillies inning, bringing out scattered and obnoxious Phillies fans. Before long, there were incidents throughout our section, with ushers breaking up the scuffles and ejecting fans. Compare that to a game late in 2009 when the Rockies came from behind on a walk-off, grandslam by Ryan Spilborghs. I counted exactly one Giants fan in the stands, and she was more of a novelty than a nuisance.

I think there will be much to watch and cheer for this summer. It was fun to be part of the first win!