One moment summed up Nolan Arenado’s tenure with the Rockies

“Oh man, I keep forgetting I hit for the cycle, too.”

That quote is what comes to mind when I think about Nolan Arenado. In my mind, it kind of sums up what he is all about as a baseball player.

It was Father’s Day 2017 at Coors Field. The weather was perfect. The stadium was full. The Rockies were wearing their light-blue-and-white hats and uniforms. The rival Giants were in the other dugout.

The Rockies were down 5-4 with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning. They had two on and one out, when up stepped the Rockies All-Star third baseman.

In his first at-bat that brilliant afternoon, Arenado sliced a ball into the right field corner that he turned into a triple. The next time up, he singled sharply to right. In at-bat No. 3, he ripped a double to the gap in left center. He had also made two incredible defensive plays at third base.

How interesting that the opposing pitcher, in that moment, was a Denver native. Golden High School product Mark Melancon was trying to close the game for San Francisco. On this Fathers’s Day, his own dad was watching in the stands.

With the count 1-1, Melancon tried to go inside with a fastball, but the pitch drifted back over the inside part of the plate. Arenado turned on it and sent it into the seats beyond the left-field fence. The swing sent 48,341 fans into a Coors Field frenzy.

A walk-off home run. To beat their rivals. On Father’s Day. To complete the cycle!

Arenado circled the bases with a pointing to the sky, followed by several fist pumps. In the ensuing celebration with teammates at home plate, he suffered a pretty good gash above his left eye.

Part of my radio postgame duties was to interview the star after a Rockies win. As soon as Arenado’s ball landed in the left-field seats, I grabbed my recorder and sprinted out of the radio booth and quickly descended four flights of stairs. I slipped into the Rockies clubhouse and came out to the field through the dugout.

Nolan was being interviewed on the field for Rockies TV. No one had left Coors Field. Fans were still in a frenzy. The Coors Field energy had not waned. I grabbed a towel from the dugout, stood just outside the dugout and waited.

When Nolan was done with TV, he seemed much more interested in acknowledging crazy Rockies fans than talking to me. But he finally saw me, with my recorder in hand, and nodded his head, the signal that he was ready and willing to talk. I handed him the towel and he quickly wiped blood out of his left eye.

I asked him about the win, the pitch he hit, the crowd going crazy. He excitedly answered all the questions with his normal boyish enthusiasm. Then, I asked hitting for the cycle with his last swing.
“Oh man, I keep forgetting I hit for the cycle too.”

I’m not sure this one line better captures Nolan Arenado, maybe the baseball player and the man. He was so excited to win the game, so excited to share it with his teammates and Rockies fans, so excited to beat the Giants that he nearly forgot his own incredible personal accomplishment.

In the wake of a trade that sends him to the Cardinals, that’s how I will remember Nolan Arenado. Winning is first. Individual accomplishments after that.

Thank you, Nolan, for showing us the right priorities in sports.

And for eight dazzling, sometimes mind-boggling seasons in a Rockies uniform!