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Law of Unintended Consequences led to Rockies’ ruin, Manning Era in Denver

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September 26, 2014, 10:51 am
Clint Hurdle

Clint Hurdle (Wiki Commons).

I’m a big believer in the Law of Unintended Consequences (LOUC) generally raining down ruin, whether it’s in the world of sports or just the world. A subparagraph in the unofficial LOUC statute is the IIABDFI dictum: If it Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It.

For instance, the United States ousted a brutal dictator in Saddam Hussein by invading Iraq in 2003, but now that dubiously well-intentioned but ill-advised preemptive strike has unleashed thousands of head-hunting Jihadists in 2014, which taxpayers around the globe will apparently be ponying up to bomb well into the foreseeable future.

Similarly, though obviously far less consequentially, the Colorado Rockies stupidly jettisoned the best manager in team history when they showed Clint Hurdle the door in 2009 after taking the team to the World Series in 2007 followed by just one bad season in 08.

Now Hurdle, bad hip and all (and no pain meds), is taking one of the worst teams in recent baseball history – the Pittsburgh Pirates — to the playoffs for the second straight year. The Rockies have done nothing since Jim Tracy took over Hurdle’s 09 team and piloted it to an early exit from the playoffs.

And on the topic of bad hips, I’m reminded of the Rockies’ rock throughout those distant playoff runs: Shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who wears No. 2 in honor of retiring Yankees’ icon Derek Jeter but would look so much better in Cal Ripken’s No. 8 if he could even remotely emulate the Iron Man’s durability.

Instead, Tulo recently had the same surgery Vail’s Marc Philippon performed on Jeter teammate Alex Rodriguez. Tulo may never lead the Rockies to the Promised Land again, and he almost certainly won’t be replacing his idol Jeter, who left New York in grand style last night with a clutch, walk-off hit.

I grew up and Orioles fan, hating the Yankees and Red Sox, but even I was psyched for Jeter last night, especially because the O’s still won the division and are going to the postseason and the Yankees and Sox area headed to their Florida homes to fine tune their golf games.

Again, I am pulling hard for a Pirates-Orioles rematch of the 79 “We are Family” Word Series, but even if that happens I’ll still be bitterly lamenting the ineptitude of the Rockies, who cast aside Hurdle (and Bucs’ second baseman Clint Barmes) and got nothing for pitcher Ubaldo Jimenez, who struggled but still contributed six wins for Baltimore this season.

Of course, I’ll grudgingly admit the Law of Unintended Consequences can work the other way as well.

For instance, if the best local sports owner of all-time, Pat Bowlen, hadn’t ousted a clearly past-his-prime Mike Shanahan in 2008 and inexplicably replaced him with the woefully unprepared Josh McDaniels, the Denver Broncos would still be stuck with Jay Cutler and never would have experienced the wildly entertaining albeit brief Tim Tebow Era followed by the magnificence (Super Bowl aside) of the Peyton Manning Era.

If the Broncos win a warm-weather Super Bowl closer to home in Arizona in February, we can thank McDaniels and the Law of Unintended Consequences.

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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.