The Toddfather

Hey baseball fans!

The Colorado Rockies are a fairly new franchise when it comes to MLB teams, having only started competing during the regular season in 1993. With that being said, there is only one ballplayer who played a mile above sea level who has had his number retired by the Rockies: Todd Helton ! In fact, his number was retired by Colorado only several days ago, which is why I want to talk about him for this post.

The Toddfather, as he was nicknamed, played with the Rockies for his entire career from 1997-2013. The five-time All Star first baseman is known as a very good all-around player; he could field excellently and he could also hit for average and power. He batted .316 for his career, hit 369 homers, drove in 1,406 runs, and collected 2,519 base hits. The homers, RBIs, and hits are all Rockies’ all time highs.

The four-time Silver Slugger and three-time Gold Glove winner had his best season in 2000, when he led the league in batting average (.372), RBIs (147), hits (216), on-base percentage (.463), and slugging percentage (.698). Although Colorado didn’t make the playoffs that year, Todd helped the Rockies get to the postseason twice, in 2007 and 2009. In 2007, the Rockies even got to the World Series!

Here’s a fun fact about Todd Helton: he went to the same college, University of Tennessee, at the same time as NFL star, Peyton Manning. They were both QBs for the Volunteers and had Todd not suffered an injury, he might have been an NFL star instead of Manning. Anyway, thanks for reading this post. Congratulations to Todd Helton on his number being retired by the Colorado Rockies. I hope you enjoyed this post and check back soon for more of “all the buzz on what wuzz.”