Story could be best of all
Down on Blake Street, the history of the Rockies is told one home run at a time. When it’s all said and done, after he has finished wrecking pitchers’ egos and denting hoods of sports cars in the Coors Field parking lot, Trevor Story is going to be the biggest Blake Street Bomber of them all.
The career record for home runs by a Colorado batter is 369, set by Todd Helton during the course of 17 big-league seasons. I predict Story will not only shatter that mark but make a run at joining the 500 Club, reserved for the greatest longball hitters of all time.
The story of baseball in Colorado has been written large and loud by powerful hitters fondly known as the Toddfather and Cargo, the Big Cat and Cousin Vinny. But Story is the strongest man ever to step in the batter’s box wearing a Rockies uniform.
“The power and the explosiveness, how fast he is. He’s got some tools I don’t have,” said Nolan Arenado, the Rockies’ $260 million man. “He does some things that I wish I could. I wish I could run like him, and I wish I could flip the ball to rightcenter with power. He does things that are crazy.”
When a ballplayer inspires awe in a fellow major-leaguer, it means something, especially when that hitter is Arenado, who has led the National League in home runs during three of the past four seasons.
Story speaks softly and carries a big stick. So don’t expect him to brag on any of his homers, whether the longball wins a game or travels 500 feet. With the image of Bamm-bamm Rubble from “The Flintstones” in my head, I asked Story if he was born a big swinger, crushing home runs from the time he was a young kid in Texas.
“I was more a pitcher when I was younger, because I could throw the ball hard,” Story said. “But I really found a liking and love for hitting.”
No shortstop in major-league history has reached 100 homers faster than Story, who got to the milestone Friday. Let that sink in for a minute. Not Ernie Banks, not Nomar Garciaparra, not Alex Rodriguez.
What makes it all the more remarkable is those three iconic shortstops retired from the game with a combined 1,437 home runs credited to their famous names.
“To be part of that group is truly special,” Story said.
This is how the legend of the biggest Blake Street Bomber of them will grow: One massive homeratatime.
With a flick of his wrists, Story can hit a walk-off bomb to the opposite field, as he did in a comeback victory to open a weekend series against Baltimore. We’ve seen him circle the bases after a swing that caused him to fall to the ground in the batter’s box. And Story can launch a ball as far as any man on earth, as evidenced by the 505-foot blast to field field he crushed at Coors in September 2018, causing teammate Carlos Gonzalez to marvel: “As soon as it came off the bat, I said: ‘Oh, man, that’s going to hit the scoreboard and it’s going to go straight to my Lamborghini in the parking lot.’ ”
And know what’s really cool about the development of Story as one of the game’s most-feared power hitters? The way it happened. When the 6-foot-1, 210pound shortstop debuted with the Rockies in 2016, Story swung so hard, so often, it seemed his only two options in the scorebook were:hrork.
“His first couple years, there were a lot of swing and misses, a lot of over-swings,” Arenado said. “And, now, (Story) is still an aggressive hitter that takes his hacks. But he has slowed the game down and realized he doesn’t have to do so much to make things happen. His power is incredible, and I think he has realized he doesn’t have to do so much to show that power.”
By learning to relax a little with a bat in his hands, Story has actually given pitchers more reason to be nervous.
At the entrance of the press box at the ballpark in Lodo, there’s a photograph of the original Blake Street Bombers walking out of the home-plate entrance at Coors and into the baseball city they built one big swing at a time. In the photo, Ellis Burks, Larry Walker, Andres Galarraga, Dante Bichette and Vinny Castilla are all carrying bats and wearing big smiles.
It’s a legacy celebrated every time Story goes deep and touches ’em all.