'He’s what’s right about the game': Blackmon hangs up spikes after 14 years

DENVER -- Sunday morning’s goodbye was quiet.

It occurred outside of the touching video tributes, the on-field ceremony and the truck -- brought down from a sponsor’s display above the left-field concourse (which matches the vehicle he owns) -- dressed up and presented near home plate. Retiring Rockies paragon Charlie Blackmon visited with his manager of the last eight of his 14 seasons with the club, Bud Black.

“It got a little emotional,” Black said. “We hugged. And we sort of pulled away and smiled at each other and said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna see you again.’”

Blackmon has said he will come down to Spring Training to talk and offer his expertise -- and Black plans to put him to work on the back fields in Scottsdale, Ariz.

Blackmon exited after a third-inning single, then watched the Dodgers once again rain on the Rockies’ party.

Right-hander Ryan Feltner held the Dodgers to two hits in six innings, and Sam Hilliard blasted a 476-foot homer off Landon Knack. In the eighth, however, Chris Taylor homered off Victor Vodnik and reliever Seth Halvorsen caught a spike and balked in the go-ahead run of the 2-1 loss at Coors Field.

There are questions for a 61-101 club. The Rockies and Black have put off announcing a decision about whether his contract will be extended into next season until after a review period. And the talent base, while improved, will need an infusion before 2025.

But the club spent Sunday giving Blackmon his proper send-off. He gave a speech at home plate. His wife, Ashley, daughter, Josie, and son, Wyatt, participated in first-pitch ceremonies. Josie is a lefty like her dad, while Wyatt throws from the other side.

“Both hit lefty,” Blackmon quipped.

The grass in center field, the position Blackmon played the most, has been shaved with a No. 19 pattern throughout the weekend series. Black wrote the No. 8 beside Blackmon’s name, and the first inning extended his club record of appearances in center to 692 games.

Blackmon finished his final season strong, partly because of the outpouring.

“Just running out to my position, or running out to stretch way before the game, they start cheering for me,” Blackmon said. “Just running out is a real boost. The atmosphere is what allowed me to elevate myself, even though I didn’t get my normal off-days, but I didn’t get too tired.”

To start the contest, the other Rockies starters stayed in the dugout and allowed Blackmon to trot alone to his spot. The soundtrack to the pregame was The Outfield’s “Your Love,” Blackmon’s longstanding walk-up song with the sing-along “Toni-i-i-i-ght.”

But as Blackmon absorbed the crowd’s roar while standing in the position he once called “the essence of outfield play,” the loudspeakers appropriately blared John Fogerty’s “Centerfield.”

“He’s one of my favorite players to watch,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “As a manager, you look at how guys take at-bats. They don’t give away at-bats, they play defense, they run the bases. He’s always in the dugout watching the game.

“He’s what’s right about the game.”

Blackmon, who communicated with Black that he wanted to come out after two plate appearances, switched to right field for his 560th appearance the next inning. The single in the bottom of the third came off Knack.

“I don’t think it could ever get old or you could get tired of that feeling -- getting a hit,” said Blackmon, who finished his career with 1,805 hits in 1,624 games. “One last time getting to savor it on the way out was really great.”

Jordan Beck, a rookie this year and a first-round pick in 2022, replaced Blackmon as a pinch-runner.

Before the funky ending, the Rockies’ last day of school featured some A-plus performances.

Feltner was a hard-luck 3-10, yet finished with a respectable 4.49 ERA. He had a 2.98 mark over his final 15 starts, making him the first Rockies starter with a sub-3.00 ERA through a 15-start run since Germán Márquez during his All-Star campaign in 2021. Feltner also held Shohei Ohtani hitless in three at-bats, thus ending the likely NL MVP’s bid for a Triple Crown.

“We talked about it,” Feltner said. “When there’s something on the line like that, he’s going to be ultra aggressive, so I just kept that in the back of my mind and made sure that I was game-planning accordingly.”

Hilliard’s blast reached the concourse of the third deck.

“It wasn’t a matter of whether it was going to go, just how far it was going to go,” Hilliard said.