“Come around and talk it over” – The Outfield

This post is several months overdue, but now that the boys of summer are back, it seems an appropriate time to make it up.

I love baseball, and so the next few months are really great for me. I don’t really care about the trivial complaints – “too boring,” “too slow,” too whatever. I just politely nod along and smile, but inside, secretly, I’ll be thinking something is wrong with you or whomever raised you. Judgmental? Perhaps, but in the middle innings of my life, I’m too secure in myself to really care much either way. I don’t have the desire to debate the beauty of a sacrifice bunt during a day game at Wrigley, or the euphoric feeling of a late inning home run cutting through the thin air in Denver, because I know the final innings are approaching, and I have more important things to focus on rather than whether or not you care for America’s past time.

But there is something missing this season, or better yet, someone missing this season. With due respect to Joey Votto, I truly only miss one player who retired with very little fanfare at the end of the 2024 season. His name is Charles Cobb Blackmon, aka “Chuck Nazty” for those of you in the know.

Drafted out of Georgia Tech University in the second round of the MLB draft in 2008, a baby-faced Charlie Blackmon broke into the major leagues with little notice in June of 2011 just shy of his 25th birthday. He played left field and batted seventh behind the likes of Todd Helton and Troy Tulowitzski. Blackmon got his first major league hit, a single, in his second game as a pro the next day in his first at bat off of San Diego Padres’ pitcher Dustin Moseley. He bounced between the big club and their AAA squad in Colorado Springs over the next two seasons, but from 2014 on, Charlie Blakmon was a fan favorite and fixture in the outfield and on the base paths for the Colorado Rockies.

Fast forward to 2024, and a now grizzled 38-year-old Chuck Nazty, hair flapping in the wind as he rounded first base, singled up the middle off of Los Angeles Dodgers’ pitcher Landon Knack last September. After that hit on a sunny afternoon in front of the home crowd, Blackmon called it a career. The dash in between 2011 and 2024 represented a career spent entirely with Colorado, which saw Charlie garner over 1800 hits including 227 homers, and a very solid lifetime OPS of .832. The years also included four all-star appearances and a 2017 season where Charlie finished 5th in the MVP voting.

I was not a huge Rockies fan, but I spent two weeks every summer in Boulder for banking school (it’s a real thing, I swear. Shoutout GSBC). While there for those six cumulative weeks between 2017 and 2019, I attended five Colorado Rockies’ games and came to love the ballpark and the chance to watch Charlie Blackmon. His style reminded me of a modern-day version of Pete Rose. Batting from the left side like Charlie Hustle, Colorado’s own Charlie was a grinder as well, working every pitch, every at-bat, and hustling his way around the bases while tracking down fly balls and line drives in the outfield. But unlike the clean shaven, clean cut Rose, an aura of coolness surrounded Blackmon that seemed to allude Rose. And where Rose seemed aloof, the unassuming Blackmon seemed more likely to join you and your pals at the bar for a beer or two.

Charlie Blackmon is not a hall of famer, and I don’t think anyone is arguing he is, but Charlie Blackmon was at a bare minimum very good and at other times, a great player. I appreciated his game. I appreciated his dedication. I appreciated his demeanor. Charlie Blackmon was solid, and there’s nothing wrong with that when you’re a professional athlete.

The final innings are coming at all of us whether we care to see or it not. And while most of us might dream of finishing out our game like a triple-digit throwing closer, or hitting a towering walk-off 400 foot blast into the upper deck, I have absolutely no problems being that guy who blisters a grounder up the middle between short and second base and hustles his way down to first base before taking my curtain call. And there’s a way to define that moment. Solid.

“I just want to use your love… tonight!”

Ahh, the outfield or The Outfield. The iconic walk-up song for outfielder Charlie Blackmon was just another reason that I loved watching Charlie play at his home ballpark. The Outfield was a band from London (who knew very little about American baseball) that formed in 1984 and found immediate success like homering in your first major league at bat. I’ve long loved this song, and apparently Charlie has also been a fan for many years…

The Outfield peaked with this song, which was their first release from their 1985 debut album, “Play Deep.” Reaching #6 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1986, here is the band that early on was actually known as The Baseball Boys (a nod to the gang in the movie “The Warriors”), before changing their name to The Outfield. It’s their biggest hit and one that played over the loud speakers at Coors Field for many years. May you always think of Charlie Blackmon when you hear… “Your Love” by The Outfield.

A tip of the cap, and a thanks for the memories, Charlie.

sincerely,

the80s