Rockies Owner Calls Himself 'Most Competitive Man In World'
DENVER (CBS4) – The Colorado Rockies haven't sipped champagne since their last trip to the playoffs in 2009. Last place finishes have been the norm for the last two years. CBS4's Tom Helmer sat down with owner Dick Monfort to talk about the job he's doing and if he's doing enough.
Monfort told Helmer if he had to grade himself it would not be very good.
"If I graded myself well I'd get a lot of criticism," he said. "Our goal every year is to get in the playoffs."
He said the organization stays true to their belief that they should bring players up through the organization and not make a lot of trades.
Helmer questioned Monfort about the point of constructing a new rooftop bar at Coors Field instead of spending the money on better players. Monfort said one doesn't really have anything to do with the other.
"You've got to go back to the beginning of Coors Field when it was designed. It was designed to be 40,000 seats," he said. "Everybody knows those seats, other than maybe 10 times a year, weren't used. So you've got to find something there that's going to work, that's going to help you. Our demographics are a lot of young kids that hang out at the bars and the rooftops around town.
"So we tried to mimic that and create something out there where we'd get people that don't necessarily go to a game because they're not baseball fans where we create some excitement where they can become baseball fans."
He said putting new seats in the stadium will cost about $10 million.
"It's a onetime expense; it's not something we pay every year, so it doesn't really affect our budget."
Some people have an impression of the Monforts that as long as fans are filling the seats they don't care about the team's success.
"Come sit down with me and see how often I worry about how many people are in the stands," he said. "I worry about the performance of the team … we want to win. I am the most competitive man in the world, and anybody who doesn't think I want to win just doesn't know me very well."
Monfort said he feels the teams has better depth than they've had in previous years, and that will help them compete for a division title.
