October 1, 2007 3:11 PM
Live from El Chapultepec...
A guy with purple tinted hair got on the mall bus at Stout Street. So we're officially in Game Face mode.
Bars along on Blake and Market Streets are starting to fill up two hours before the game but I'm headed to El Chapultepec, the tiny jazz club on 20th and Market Streets where the sign above the bar sets the ground rules: "CASH ONLY - No credit cards."
You have your sports bar, I have mine. You need a TV set the size of a picture window and waitresses in skimpy costumes, this isn't your place. The Pec has a TV set, I'm guessing 23 inches, perched on a shelf above the drum kit. Good Hearted Woman is on the juke box, followed by I'm Busted, which might be the anthem of Saturday nights.
The juke is equal opportunity: Matchbox 20, Frank Sinatra, Duke Ellington, Janis Joplin, Miles Davis.
It's a block from Coors Field and the perfect place to slip away for a middle-innings margarita and a set of jazz. It's not overly bright but you're still going to see guys in sunglasses at every hour of the day. A Rockies calendar behind the bar and a small Broncos poster on the wall between the bathroom doors are the only nods to sports.
A quartet of Rockies fans raise a toast: "To winning the Wild Card playoff." A guy at the bar wears a black T-shirt with this message, written upside down: "If you can read this, put me back on my barstool."
Two guys in Rockies T-shirts meander in, check the place out, then meander back out. Like I said, it's not everybody's idea of a sports bar. Nobody is using a cell phone; wait, a guy in a purple shirt has one pressed to his ear as he leans into the doorway, looks around, then keeps going. Close call.
Pat Maestas is at the bar wearing an old school Rockies jersey - Dante Bichette, No. 10. He was at the Coors Field groundbreaking and the home opener but didn't score tickets for today's playoff game.
"I just came down to see the festivities and be part of the crowd, the activity," he said. "I've had the jersey since '95."
Will they win today? "Without a doubt," he proclaims.
October 1, 2007
5:15 PM
shaggy writes:
Go Rocks!!!!!
October 1, 2007
6:29 PM
Anonymous writes:
Yawn.