How sweep it is
By Mark Kiszla
The Denver Post (
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At a mile high, baseball in Colorado is played a little closer to heaven.
So maybe Mike Coolbaugh did witness every father's dream, when his two sons dressed in Rockies uniforms walked on Coors Field for a National League playoff game.
"I throw a fastball," declared 5-year-old Joey Coolbaugh, the name stitched across his uniform too large for his tiny back.
In the grand tradition of sibling rivalry, 4-year-old Jake Coolbaugh quickly added: "I throw faster."
On a weird, wonderful Saturday night when the ballpark lights went dark during the second inning and Colorado won the first playoff series in franchise history by beating Philadelphia 2-1, no moment was more magical than when the young Coolbaugh boys reared back and threw smoke on dueling ceremonial first pitches as 50,000 fans cheered through tears.
"I know their daddy is looking down on them and smiling," said Mandy Coolbaugh, widow of the late coach for the Tulsa Drillers, a minor-league team for the Rockies.
Who said there's no crying in baseball?
Mike Coolbaugh, a baseball lifer who got to the majors just long enough for a cup of coffee and a doughnut, died in July at age 35 while standing in the first-base box, chopped down by a screaming line drive he never saw, becoming the first player to be killed by a baseball in a pro game since 1920.
"If something ever happens to me," Coolbaugh inexplicably had informed his wife earlier this summer, as he tossed batting practice to Joey and Jake in the front yard, "I want you to know how to teach them."
For more than a century, the sport has been passed from fathers to sons, every red stitch on the baseball a little piece of paternal pride. Everybody who truly loves the game is family.
How else to explain that Rockies players, none of whom ever turned a double play or shared a bag of sunflower seeds with Coolbaugh, voted a full playoff share to a deceased man who worked in the organization less than a month? Should Colorado advance to the World Series, the gift could be worth more than $300,000. Now that's a team with heart.
"When I heard what the players did, I almost cried," Rockies general manager Dan O'Dowd recently said.
Before he was taken away, Mike Coolbaugh must have taught his boys all the essential fundamentals. Focus your eyes on the target. Drive toward home. And keep smiling, no matter what.
Their mother, eight months pregnant, stayed at home for her unborn baby's sake, trusting Joey and Jake to do the family proud in the biggest game of these kids' lives.
"Remember everything Daddy taught you," were the last words Mandy Coolbaugh said before handing the two boys to their aunt and waving goodbye.
The No. 29 Tulsa uniform worn by Coolbaugh adorned the Colorado dugout during batting practice.
"Everything is a reminder of my brother, and almost anything can trigger a memory," said Scott Coolbaugh, who clutched the little hands of his nephews as they walked on the field. "It can be a photo. A smile. Something that's said. His favorite words were: 'Good times."'
Back in Texas, a grieving widow was unable to see her sons make their best pitch, because the television feed was showing Arizona eliminate Chicago from the playoffs at the time.
"It's been a real rough day for me, to tell the truth," admitted Mandy Coolbaugh, unable to be blanketed in the warmth of hugs from her children for the longest stretch since receiving the awful telephone call that shattered the soul of a baseball family.
Colorado, however, has ignited a little fireworks in darkness. With a September to remember morphing into the happy noise of Rocktober, the team has won 17 of its past 18 games. Pinch-hitter Jeff Baker beat the Phillies with a single in the eighth inning, scoring Garrett Atkins. Closer Manny Corpas nailed down the victory and jumped for joy.
Over the stadium loudspeakers, the music blared to words that Coolbaugh would've loved: "Celebrate good times!"
Of course, none of it can bring a father back for Joey and Jake.
But this was a day that could make anyone fall in love with the game forever.
As the airplane made an arc across the sky, carrying Mike Coolbaugh's young boys toward a baseball moment that was always in a father's dreams but never within his grasp, two brothers peered out the window, and from 35,000 feet above the earth, saw as far as a child's imagination could take them.
It was a scene their aunt will never forget.
"We're higher than heaven!" Joey exclaimed.
Needing less than a heartbeat to engage in fraternal one-upmanship, young Jake added: "No, we're higher than God."
Instantly, both boys instinctively understood what that meant.
Staring at the endless blue sky, Joey Coolbaugh said: "I see Daddy."