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Celebrating the 10th anniversary of both Rocktober and RealVail.com

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September 15, 2017, 9:56 am

Max Williams watches Todd Helton on second base in 2013 after Helton’s 2,500th career hit. Helton will be at Coors Field tonight to celebrate Rocktober’s 10th anniversary (David O. Williams photo).

This month marks both the 10th anniversary of RealVail.com and Rocktober, when the Colorado Rockies went on their own Indians-esque tear of 21 wins in 22 games to force a one-game play-in against current Rox manager Bud Black’s San Diego Padres. The Rockies won in 13 innings and went on to the World Series, where they were swept by the clearly chemically-enhanced Boston Roid Sox.

The O Zone by David O. Williams

The O. Zone
by David O. Williams

That incredible run will be honored tonight at Coors Field when the Rockies host the Padres with just a two-and-a-half-game lead for the second wildcard spot and a chance to take on the Arizona Diamondbacks in yet another one-game play-in for the right to take on the staggering Los Angeles Dodgers in the divisional round.

I would go tonight if I could but have to be up early Saturday for the Eagle Valley High School home cross-country meet at Gypsum Creek Golf Course, where I will cheer on my two runners for the Battle Mountain Huskies at 10 a.m. and my youngest son in the middle school race at 8:30 a.m. Then it’s the Devil’s Dash 5K open citizen’s race at 9:15, where I’ll be defending my third-place age-group ribbon from last year.

Unlike those 2007 Roid Sox, I will not be juiced. Anyone interested in a great, fun running environment and a “relatively” easy 5K to contrast the Huskies brutal home meet at Beaver Creek should come out and support all the young Vail Valley runners. Click here for more info on the fundraiser Devil’s Dash 5K.

The other 10th anniversary I mentioned is the decade mark for RealVail.com, which I started as a way to control my own publishing destiny while continuing to freelance for other publications (see my bio at the end of this post). The site has steadily gained traction over those 10 years and serves as a valuable progressive voice for the Vail Valley and beyond — in my opinion. My critics would love to see me go away.

That’s not happening. Especially now, with a president in the White House who blames everything on his own bad press instead of owning up to the fact that he’s an incompetent and dangerous blowhard who never should have been elected.

Case in point: Instead of focusing on yet another missile launch over Japan by North Korea, or federal rescue efforts in Florida and Texas, or fixing our broken healthcare system, Trump on Friday actually spent time demanding an apology from ESPN for the opinions tweeted by one of its sports anchors.

The White House Thursday called for ESPN host Jemele Hill to be fired for tweeting that Trump “is a white supremacist who has largely surrounded himself w/ other white supremacists.” Personally, I would like to see Trump fired for inviting Russia to hack our elections and saying there were “some very fine people” among the KKK and neo-Nazi mob that sparked a deadly race riot in Charlottesville — a statement he doubled down on Thursday.

Trump has more than invited the fairly accurate criticism Hill leveled this week, and those who voted for him are complicit in condoning Trump’s nationalist hate speech dating back to his birther movement attacks on President Barack Obama and campaign rhetoric slamming Mexicans as rapists and drug dealers.

Not only should Trump be fired in 2020 (or sooner if it turns out he broke the law colluding with Russia or obstructing the investigation), any corporation that does not stand up to Trump’s hateful and divisive policies and statements deserves to be fired by consumers — and that includes ESPN if it buckles to White House pressure and fires Hill. As big of a sports fans as I am, I will stop watching the network.

Even if they’re the only network carrying the latest Rockies playoff push.

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David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.