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HOUSTON The Astros, in their long history, have never had a player hit four homers in a game. Perhaps nobody has come closer, though, than Vinny Castilla, who became one of 12 players in club history to slug three homers a game when he did it on July 28, 2001, at the Pirates.
Castilla hit a solo homer in the second, a three-run homer in the fifth and a solo homer in the eighth, helping Houston to an 8-2 lead it blew in the ninth inning, when Brian Giles hit a walk-off grand slam off Billy Wagner to complete a stunning comeback. It was also Giles that robbed Castilla of what would have been a fourth home run when he made a leaping catch at the wall in the fourth inning.
Long-time listener
January 6, 2021
Raj Sharan grew up Vinny Castilla, Dikembe Mutombo, John Elway. He grew up LaPhonso and Larry and Peter. Not so different from a typical Colorado kid.
But by fifth grade, Sharan’s family had uprooted him to Baltimore, exiling him from the teams and players he loved. Except for the occasional cameo in a Sports Illustrated photo, the only indicator of what his favorite Nuggets player looked like was a pixelated image in the video game NBA Jam.
The instrument of Sharan’s epiphany would be streaming audio. In 2007, out of college but still in Maryland, Sharan discovered the online signal of a Denver radio station, AM 950 “The Fan,” where hosts like Scott Hastings and Alfred Williams talked Nuggets, Avs, Broncos and Rockies.
With last year’s induction of Larry Walker to the baseball Hall of Fame, the Rockies finally broke through giving the club representation at Cooperstown. Todd Helton, although unlikely to make it this year, seems to have made a big enough leap in voting to follow in Walker’s footsteps at some point in the next several years (more on that later.) The question then becomes, who would be the third Rockie to join MLB’s all-time greats?
While Cargo’s storied career certainly puts him in the conversation, I’m afraid the Coors Field effect would weigh him down enough to keep him out of the Hall. With no other former Rockies possessing a strong enough case to seriously warrant consideration, we’re left with current Rockies and figuring out whether or not they’re on a Cooperstown trajectory.
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DENVER Plenty of players have put up big stats in a Rockies uniform and become synonymous with their jersey numbers, while others have had more modest tenures with the organization.
MLB.com is looking back at the best players to wear each number in franchise history since the 1993 inaugural season. In some cases, players wore multiple numbers in their Rockies careers. To include as many of the notable players as possible, MLB.com is listing the numbers used, and the years they wore that specific number.
0: RHP Adam Ottavino (2013-18)
The extreme movement on Ottavino’s slider made him a highly effective relief pitcher and a fan favorite.
Psychologist Angela Duckworthstresses the importance of a growth mindset instead of a contrary fixed mindset. A fixed mindset is exactly that fixed in that an attitude does not change no matter the circumstance or opportunity. An individual is confined to a predetermined method of thinking, and it doesn’t often lead to optimism or progression. A growth mindset propels somebody into exactly that growth and it encourages change for the better.
“If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten,” says Tony Robbins.
The Rockies’ analytics team has been “gutted” in recent weeks, according to The Athletic. The gutting can lead fans to assume Colorado has some bottom-billed projection methods with some top-billed trade targets. If the Rockies are indeed playing analytical checkers while others play chess, it means now is a dangerous time to construct deals with key players. You can’t project future performance seamlessly with anything short of a t