Somebody break up the red-hot Colorado Rockies.
No, seriously.
Fresh off their first sweep of the season, the Rockies enter this weekend’s three-game set with the New York Mets riding a full-blown one-series winning streak. They’re now 12-50. Twelve wins. Fifty losses. They’re still dead last in the National League West. And yes, they were the first team in MLB history to hit 50 losses before reaching double-digit wins. That happened just last weekend.
Imagine watching that every night. Now, imagine having to call that for 162 games.
That’s the reality for Rockies radio voice Jack Corrigan, who’s been at this long enough to know how to get through a summer like this because he’s done it before. A lot. He joined The Dan Patrick Show this week to talk about the mental gymnastics that go into broadcasting a historically bad team.
“That’s a great question. I was fortunate, kind of in a backhanded way, if you will, when I started with the Indians back in 1985; three of my first seven seasons covering the Indians, they lost more than 100 games,” he recalled. “So, I learned early on in my play-by-play time, if you will, to really compartmentalize. The great Joe Tait, may he rest in peace, who was my first baseball partner, outstanding basketball announcer, in the Basketball Hall of Fame for his work with the Cavaliers. Joe said to me, He goes, ‘Baseball’s a 162-chapter book. All you do is worry about the chapter that night. It may be one of the best things he said.
“You can be an awful team, and you’re going to still win 50-60 games. So you tell yourself, ‘Tonight’s one of the nights we’re going to win.’ You get all excited. You do it. And then if you don’t win, you leave the ballpark feeling even better because your odds have just improved by a game that you’re still going to win 50 or 60.”
No one’s passing around a hat for sympathy. Nobody’s asking you to feel bad for someone getting paid to talk about baseball. But it is fascinating to hear how a broadcaster handles calling a season that even the die-hards have already emotionally opted out of.
Patrick asked if Corrigan has emotionally checked out from the losses or if he still brings them home with him.
“Um, no. Well, my wife might disagree with that,” he continued. “I think I’ve learned to separate it. I mean, I’ll feel it. I was a college athlete, and I’ve always been competitive, so when you aren’t winning, yes, it does impact on you because you build a relationship with those players and coaches.
“But again, that’s the beauty of baseball. The next day, you start over again. Who knows? This is a game where, that day, Kyle Freeland is going to go seven innings and pitch great like he did yesterday [versus] the Marlins. Or Hunter Goodman hits a couple of home runs. So that’s what fortifies you, if you will.”
Corrigan’s not wrong. That’s the strange magic of baseball. No matter how bad a team is, there’s always tomorrow. Even a 12–50 team is going to win 50 games. Eventually.
But when you’re this far out of it in early June, you’re not telling the story of a season. You’re just trying to make each game feel like it matters, for three hours anyway.
Because somebody has to win. Even the Rockies on occasion.