Batter up: Baseball in Colorado

Why I was in Colorado

This post documents my 2012 trip to the United States on a baseball tour with our son, who was 14 at the time, He was part of a state invitational team – the Queensland Dolphins – playing in a Little League tournament in Denver. Players, parents, and coaches spent two weeks together, participating in the tournament, exploring Colorado, and doing the tourist thing in Los Angeles on the way home.

I've posted my reflections on my Colorado experience at the end of this post and my reflections on what the experience of the baseball tour meant to me.

A little baseball background

Our son (referred to as D throughout this post) began playing baseball when he was 11 years old, after we moved from a western Brisbane suburb to the bayside area. D got into baseball via a new school friend and rapidly picked up the game. I didn’t know much about baseball then. I hadn’t ever experienced the world of high-level amateur sport and all its competitiveness and this alone has left a lasting impression on me. My anxiety and introversion (and general lack of competitiveness) made me an alien in this new world, but supporting our son gave the whole family a raft of incredible experiences. D played for his club, school, division, state, and for his country. He coached younger kids and played in the adult league for his club. My husband was involved in coaching and managing the club and playing in the Master's league. We were all completely immersed in baseball for six years, until such time as D left school to pursue an electrical apprenticeship and gave up the sport.

In 2011 and aged 13, D played for Australia in the Cal Ripken World Series tournament in Maryland. My husband accompanied D on that trip. We decided I would go with D on the Denver trip. Read on for our adventures…

The tournament

The Queensland Dolphins invitational team secured a place in the American Amateur Youth Baseball Alliance (AAYBA) World Series in Denver. This under-14s tournament began in 1989 in St Louis and expanded to include Colorado, Tennessee and Texas. I’m not sure if it’s still around, as a recent web search did not yield any results.

Things didn’t get off to a great start as we experienced a major delay in Los Angeles after we arrived off our flight from Brisbane. The poor kids were full of excitement but being stuck at LAX for hours dampened all that. I can’t recall now what the problem was with the aircraft, but think I’m right in remembering that it was around eight hours of waiting for the next flight. We eventually landed in Denver in the evening, but missed the Rockies game for which we had tickets. Not that anyone cared by then!

Luckily we had a couple of days before the tournament began to acclimatise and recover from the flights. Those first two days were a whirlwind, though. It was was July so we'd come from winter in Brisbane to temperatures in the mid-30s in Colorado. It was hot, but the heat was dry and completely different from the humidity that plagues our home city.

Unfortunately, D wasn't feeling the best over that first weekend and had to be taken off the field on the second day when the kids were practising at the tournament venue. He and I had hardly eaten anything since we arrived, and I'm sure that didn't help. That was one of the tour cons, that we didn't have easy access to food. Meals weren't always planned well and it was kind of an "eat when you have the opportunity" kind of thing. There was only junk food at the tournament canteen (that awful American orange liquid cheese) and no grocery stores close to our hotel.

There was shopping over that first weekend along with tournament preparation. Actually, shopping featured a lot on the tour! We drove out to a giant outlet mall outside of the city and everyone bought loads of clothes and shoes. This was back in the day when the Australian dollar matched the US one and everything seemed cheap. I'm not much of a shopper but I did get into the swing of it with the other parents, even if spending money made me nervous. It was difficult and expensive to obtain baseball stuff in Australia then, as the sport is not widely played, so we did take the opportunity to buy gear at a massive sports store in the city.

We stayed in the Comfort Inn in Denver. Nothing fancy, but I remember that the rooms were pretty decent, as was the daily included buffet breakfast. The tour was...well...a tour, and we went wherever the coach had planned for us to go and ate in the places he had chosen for our meals. It was an expensive way to wander the world - we'd paid for the flights and accommodation, tournament fees, bus hire, and excursions, but other than breakfast in the hotel, we still had to pay for our meals.

Eating restaurant and takeaway food makes me anxious and I remember being over that part of the trip by the time we got home. It was easy having everything arranged, though, but of course being at close quarters with the group with no down time was exhausting. That said, as the photos below show, we all had a blast.

It was an interesting experience being part of the support crew. I hung out mostly with the parents from D’s club team but also made connections with parents from other Brisbane teams. We had a bus with the same driver (a lovely man, I remember) and each day we'd have breakfast in the hotel then head to the field. I enjoyed the experience, but I still felt the anxiety of the team’s performance, knowing how D was feeling about living up to expectations.

One of the fun things we did was swap pins with kids from the American teams. Super cute! That's me in the bottom lefthand photo in the badge exchange process. That's also me in the middle lefthand photo asleep! There were some long days at the field...

On the first day, there were lots of celebrations and games to open the tournament, in typical American ra-ra fashion. D took part in the timed sprint competition. Since I have zero sporting ability, I thought he did amazingly well. Look at him go! (I still remember thinking: 'That's MY child. Wow.")

The tournament was a wonderful experience for the boys, but they couldn't compete with their American counterparts playing their national sport. The Queensland team was invitational rather than competitive entry like the Cal Ripken tournament that D played in the previous year, and the team was a mixture of abilities. D did well on the field, but I remember him struggling with his pitching. It was fun to be part of it all, though, and the Australian kids were welcomed with open arms and treated like royalty.

The below collage provides a snapshot of the Colorado tournament experience. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience and I'm glad I went on tour with D, but non-competitive me did struggle a bit with the whole thing.

D was with his mates and he got to experience playing in the US for a second time. It was part of his wider experience playing sport at a high level throughout high school, where he had the privilege to travel to the US and around Australia and be part of a team and a sporting community. Baseball was a good outlet for his energy and gave him something to work at and focus his time on as a teenager. He learnt to interact with a range of people and how to deal with the highs and lows of sport.

Tournament travels

During the tournament week we were able to explore a bit of Denver. I liked the city as it felt liveable to me. Denver has a big city vibe but also felt welcoming and safe. It would be cool to live there, too, for easy access to the Rocky Mountains National Park.

We also explored the area just outside the city and took in the mountain views. The shot of the footprints below was taken at Dinosaur Ridge, a segment of the Dakota Hogback in the Morrison Fossil Area, one of the world's most famous dinosaur fossil locations. Cool.

Inevitably, we did some baseball-related things. We attended a Rockies game at Coors Field. I'd never been to a major league baseball game before. It's an incredible experience for the spectacle of it, even if you're not into the sport.

The kids had the privilege of walking into the stadium with the AAYBA teams. A couple of the boys were interviewed for a Denver local television station while we sat in the stadium. My most vivid memory of the Rockies game, though, was of the food. D and I had ice creams in little plastic baseball caps! There was cheesecake on a stick, too, as you can see from the bottom right-hand photo.

Ice cream in little plastic black baseball caps and cheesecake on a stick!

The boys were also treated to a private tour of Coors Field. It was interesting to see what goes on behind the scenes of a massive stadium and to learn something of the history of the Rockies team.

It was rather nice to be at the stadium without all the crowds and to stand on the edge of the field. I'm not a sports fan, but even I could feel why the game can become such a big part of people's lives.

The other baseball-related activity we did was visit the Olympic High Altitude Training Centre in Colorado Springs. This was 2012 and the London Olympics were due to start. It was awesome to see the training centre in an Olympic year! It has a stunning location, too, with views of the surrounding mountains. The boys had fun with the interactive exhibits and we were also able to watch some athlete training sessions.

While in Colorado Springs, we went to a Sky Sox game. The Colorado Springs Sky Sox were a minor league team playing in the Pacific Coast League until 2017, when the team was relocated to San Antonio, Texas to continue in the PCL as the San Antonio Missions. I enjoyed the evening game as it had a real community vibe to it. Colorado Springs is 114km south of Denver.

The boys had the honour of taking the field with the Sky Sox team for the national anthem at the start of the game. I went to the team shop to buy some souvenirs and had a lovely chat with the store assistant, who was super thrilled to have an Australian team watching the game. Bonus points for the fireworks, the mascot, and more ice cream in little plastic baseball caps.

I'm not sure how I feel about this one, but we did have dinner one evening at Hooters. I can't believe a place like Hooters is still standing, but it does seem to be. I found the below Reuters article, written in 2022.

The restaurant chain Hooters, known for servers wearing revealing uniforms, is not shutting down or rebranding, contrary to claims circulating online.

The falsehood was shared widely online in December with claims that the decision followed the release of a study indicating that millennials are not interested in breasts.

“There is no validity to this story,” a spokesperson for Hooters told Reuters, adding that the “concept is here to stay.”

So, there you go.

The highlights for me of our time in Colorado were the visits to the Rocky Mountains National Park and the Royal Gorge Bridge. 

We didn't have a lot of time in the national park as we drove up there in the afternoon after the tournament had finished. We basically drove to the top, stopping a couple of times at viewing points, and had a poke around the gift shop at the top. I still have loads of photos from our excursion and it was hard to choose the best ones. The below collage doesn't do the magnificent mountains justice, but I hope you get the idea.

The national park is 110km north of Denver.

The Royal Gorge Bridge is the highest suspension bridge in the United States. It was built in 1929, spanning 384 metres from rim to rim of the Gorge, suspending 291 metres above the Arkansas River. There are 4100 steel cables and 1257 wooden planks within the bridge's construction. The gorge itself is formed of rock walls made of granite and gneiss, dating back 4 billion years. How amazing is that?

Royal Gorge Bridge is 200km south of Denver. Colorado Springs is in between the gorge and Denver.

We had a good amount of time at the bridge, walking across it and marvelling at the gorge below, before sitting down to a nice picnic lunch on the other side. Disappointingly, the kids lined up to go on the skycoaster (a swing over the gorge) but didn't get the chance to actually go on it before we had to leave for Colorado Springs. I felt so sorry for the kids as they'd lined up outside the hut that housed the swing for ages, only to find once inside that the line was even longer. Still, it was pretty cool to have experienced the gorge and the magnificent feat of engineering that is the suspension bridge.

Our tour downtime in LA on the way home gave me the chance for some new experiences - Venice Beach, Bubba Gump, and Rodeo Drive, and Sunset Boulevard. Check out my post on my third visit to La-La Land.

My Colorado experience

Denver is a nice city but the best parts of Colorado are the natural landscapes. If you get the chance to go to Colorado, the Rocky Mountains and the Royal Gorge Bridge are a must-see. We only had a few hours at the gorge, and I think you need at least a whole day to properly experience it. Check out their website to plan your trip.

Having the chance to go to two major league games while we were in Colorado was amazing - the atmosphere, the celebration of the sport, and the crowds just blew me away. I'm not a sports fan by any stretch, but if you get the chance to attend a baseball game, I am sure you will love the experience, if only for the spectacle of it.

The two photos above pretty much sum up what the Colorado trip meant to me. I'm glad I went with D and that we had the chance to have such an incredible experience together.