Post by Admin on Aug 10, 2021 5:59:19 GMT
The longest-running debate around Coors Field has nothing to do with whether the Colorado Rockies should have traded for a starting pitcher, or who is the team’s greatest player of all time.
Rather, some of the most passionate squabbles center around a portly and cuddly mascot, the purple triceratops known only as Dinger.
“I just think he’s kind of a dweeb,” Denverite Dan Olds said of the Rockies’ rotund spokes-dino. “The other teams like, Miles for the Broncos is kind of intimidating; Rocky for the Nuggets is fun and goofy and messes around with fans. Dinger kind of just bounces around like Barney.”
Olds is not the first to connect baseball’s purple triceratops with the purple dinosaur of kids’ TV fame. Former Denver Post sports columnist Ben Hochman once put it in writing that Dinger looks like “Barney after a meth binge.”
This poor little Mile High guy is the Rodney Dangerfield of baseball mascots. No respect.
The Dinger-bashing has gone national with a Men’s Journal article simply titled “Baseball’s Most Hated Mascots.” Whose smiling face greets you when you open the page? You guessed it — Dinger.
The dugout dino does have his own loyal, vocal backers, like Tyler Pruitt. He was born the year the Rockies unveiled Dinger, April 16, 1994 — “hatched” from a giant egg at old Mile High Stadium, where the Rockies played before Coors Field was built.
“I like Dinger, I grew up with Dinger,” Pruitt said. “When I was a kid, I would come to games and I would get to mess around with Dinger. And the fact that they made him a dinosaur because they found dinosaur bones when they were building Coors Field, I think it’s cool.”
The Colorado Rockies have identified a fan whom microphones appeared to catch yelling racial slurs at Miami Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson during Sunday's game, an incident the team says left it "disgusted."
The alleged slurs came in the ninth inning at Coors Field with Brinson at the plate and seemed clearly audible on the Bally Sports Florida broadcast, to the point that Marlins play-by-play announcer Paul Severino immediately apologized to viewers for the language.
However, several Rockies beat writers said Monday morning that the team determined, after reviewing video of the incident and speaking with the fan, his wife, and surrounding season ticket holders, that the man had actually been yelling "Dinger," the name of the Rockies' purple dinosaur mascot.
Team says man was shouting "Dinger"
As discussion of the incident swirled on social media, one alternate theory on what happened emerged and seemed somewhat convincing.
Eagle-eyed fans noticed that the Rockies' mascot, the purple dinosaur known as "Dinger," happened to be making his way through the stands behind home plate at the time of the alleged slur. At the same time, a fan was waving toward the mascot in a way that somewhat corresponds to the yells captured on broadcast. Other Rockies fans could also be heard saying "Dinger" earlier as well.
It really has to be seen and heard to be understood. You be the judge.
Several local beat writers gave an update after speaking with the Rockies on Monday. The team said that they'd tracked down the fan and discussed the incident with him and his wife, who told them that he'd been yelling "Dinger" to get the mascot's attention. After having conversations with additional fans that had been sitting in the area, and reviewing video of the incident from the local broadcast, they determined that the man was indeed yelling "Dinger" and not a racial slur.