If you haven't been reading the Baseball Observer blog in the past few years, you may not be aware of the curses surrounding the Colorado Rockies. The curse may be worse than the "Curse of the Goat" that continues to haunt the Chicago Cubs, keeping them from winning a World Series for over a hundred years. It may also be more potent than the "Curse of the Bambino" that prevented Boston from winning a championship for 86 years.
Only time will tell, of course, but the Baseball Observer predicts that Colorado will never win a World Series until they resolve the situation that caused the curse in the first place. Curses are born when the rightful owners of something of value are deprived of it, usually through trickery or dishonesty, and are only removed when whatever was taken is restored.
First, let's review the Rockies, their checkered past, and how they came to play their home games in a cursed stadium.
The Rockies were born July 5, 1991, but before they played a game, there was a scandal within the ownership group and the principle owners, Mickey Monus and John Antonucci were kicked out and replaced by the Monforts. This resulted in the first curse, which we will call Mickey's Curse. As Mr. Monus himself said, there would be no Major League baseball in Colorado if he and Mr. Antonucci had not come forward. However, due to legal problems both men stepped down and Mr. Monus went to jail for 10 years for an unrelated matter. The Monforts have expunged their names from the team's history and have never given them their due, thus, Mickey's curse.
The Rockies began playing Major League Baseball in 1993 and played their first two seasons in Mile High Stadium, the home of the Denver Broncos, while their new home was being built in lower downtown Denver, Colorado.
The new stadium was named Coors Field before it opened in a deal between the Stadium Authority and the now defunct Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado. This deal is now recognized as the worst stadium naming pact in the history of professional sports. Not just baseball, mind you, but all of professional sports. Little league teams have better naming deals. The group of appointees that made up the Stadium Authority, along with the owners, took it upon themselves to agree on the behalf of the citizens of the cities and counties surrounding Denver, to give away the stadium naming rights FOREVER for the sum of 10 million dollars.
To put this in perspective, no other stadium has a permanent deal, and others range from 2 to 20 million per year. Conservatively speaking the deal is costing Denver-area taxpayers at least 5 million dollars per year. This was the origination of the first curse, the Coors Curse.
As mentioned before, Coors no longer exists as a entity, but was purchased by Molson Brewery of Canada, and became Molson Coors Brewing Company, who was in turn purchased by Miller Brewing. These two events probably invalidated the contract, but nothing has been reported about re-negotiating it.
Until the the Rockies and the Stadium Authority restore the money that belongs to the citizens of the area or rename the stadium, the Rockies will be cursed and will never win the World Series. Or, the citizens could follow the example of San Francisco and pass a law either setting a price for the naming rights or changing the name of the stadium.
Coors and the Rockies should take care of the curses as soon as possible, because these things tend to become more potent over time. It already seems to be affecting both the team and brewery as both have fallen upon hard times.
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