DENVER -- The black Ford F-150 Triton is gone. Last year, Ryan Speier sold the most publicly visible monument to his most notable, and oddly historic, accomplishment in his three full seasons as a right-handed relief pitcher with the Rockies.

In Game 2 of the 2007 National League Championship Series, Speier pitched a perfect 11th inning for a save in the 3-2 victory over the D-backs that put the Rockies halfway to their sweep. It was the only career save for Speier, whose Major League career consisted of 90 appearances for the Rockies (2005, 2007-09).

According to the Elias Sports Bureau, he is one of just 11 pitchers since the save rule was instituted in 1969 to have a postseason save without recording one in his regular-season career. Most of the others on that list were stars far more notable than Speier.

Even with the unlikely feat, Speier is not one for looking back. Yes, he saved the ball from that game, but it’s one of just three he has -- the others are from his first Major League strikeout and his first Minor League save. Life led him to part with the truck, bought with cash from the postseason share he received.

Todd Helton had a Ford deal where he got a truck every year, or “every couple years,” Speier recalled. “He set me up with his guy there, his rep at the local dealership and got me a sweet deal on that truck. I plopped that World Series share down, paid cash for it.

“It was tough to part with [the truck] last year, but it was time to make a grown-up decision and get a family car.”

Speier now lives in Tulsa, Okla., with his wife, Erin, soon-to-be-5-year-old son, Grant, and his 2-year-old daughter, Finley. Like the rest of the baseball world, he’ll join in watching this year’s Nationals-Astros World Series, which starts Tuesday night. Unlike the casual fan, though, he will watch with the knowledge that he owns a quirky place in history alongside some of the game’s greatest pitchers.

The list of hurlers with a postseason save and zero regular-season saves includes Hall of Famers Catfish Hunter and Greg Maddux; pitchers who should get some Hall of Fame consideration in Mark Buehrle, Madison Bumgarner and Clayton Kershaw; Cy Young Award winners in David Price and Blake Snell; and All-Stars in Kevin Millwood and Lance McCullers Jr.

The two unlike the others were Rockies -- Mark Thompson, who recorded a save in the 1995 NL Division Series against the Braves, and Speier. But Speier stands out in that he never started a game -- not in the Majors or the Minors, or during his two seasons of independent ball or one season in Japan.

Speier admits being good-naturedly freaked out that anyone remembers.

“When somebody knows my name, to be honest I fear that they are a bit too into baseball -- good on you that you know baseball that much, but for me it’s a little odd,” Speier said. “But I enjoy talking about it when people really want to hear about it. It’s a pretty unique experience, not one many people get to experience. It’s nice when people pull it out of me, but I don’t offer it up very often.”

For the Nationals and the Astros, the most prominent memories of each team’s path to the World Series -- and the moments to come the rest of the way -- most likely will star … well, the stars. But everyone who contributes to a winning team has a story.

Speier’s story is almost as unlikely as his feat.

Undrafted in 2001, Speier signed for $10,000 but blossomed in the Minors -- he set a Double-A Texas League record with 37 saves at Tulsa in 2004, and he made his Major League debut the following year. He missed the ’06 season with a torn labrum in his right throwing shoulder, but he worked his way back into the big league picture in ’07.

He caught fire late, like the rest of a team that would win 21 of 22 games before being swept by the Red Sox in the Fall Classic. Speier gave up runs in just one of his final 11 regular-season appearances and posted a 2.08 ERA over that span. He threw 1 1/3 low-leverage innings in a 10-5 Game 2 win over the Phillies in the NL Division Series.

“There wasn’t a whole lot expected of me,” he said. “We had Jeremy Affeldt, Manny Corpas, Brian Fuentes, LaTroy Hawkins, Matt Herges. I had five or six mentors out there, personally and professionally. We probably had 40 or 50 years of Major League baseball experience in that bullpen out there. LaTroy probably had 20, himself.

“I came in knowing I had a job to do, and it was the sixth or seventh. We were matching up, [left-hander] Jeremy Affeldt and I.”

But Game 2 of the NLCS didn’t fall as planned. Herges, Hawkins, Fuentes and Corpas, who lost a ninth-inning lead but kept the game tied through the 10th, appeared before Speier, who nonetheless warmed up “probably five or six times.”

The whole time his mind was racing. He admits he remembers the game’s biggest moment -- Willy Taveras’ diving catch of a Tony Clark drive in right-center -- only because, “LaTroy on the mound throwing up his arms after Taveras made that catch is one of those images you see all the time leading up to the playoffs.”

After Taveras walked in the top of the 11th to force in the go-ahead run, Speier entered five innings later than expected with everything on the line and his nerves afire. Even more, Speier, listed at 6-7, had to find the strike zone against Augie Ojeda, who was almost a foot shorter.

“I remember not being able to feel my legs so well when I first got out there, being amped up with nervous energy, and I went down 3-0,” he said. But once you get that first strike, you lock in.”

Ojeda flied to left with the count full, and Speier coaxed a fly to center from Micah Owings on an 0-2 pitch. Then he disposed of Chris Young with a strikeout on four pitches.

“After the game was over, I had never been so physically and mentally exhausted,” Speier said. “I slept so great that night.”

Like the rest of the Rockies, who sat at home for eight mostly cold and snowy days waiting for the Red Sox to come back from a 3-1 deficit, Speier couldn’t find his rhythm for the World Series. He walked all three batters he faced in a 13-1 Game 1 defeat.

“It sounds like an excuse, but I don’t want it to; we just couldn’t get any game reps in,” he said. “My nerves were fine. It didn’t get sped up the way I expected it to with the situation or the awe of Fenway Park. I don’t think it contributed to my failure. I just didn’t pitch well.”

An up-and-down player between Triple-A and the Majors, Speier was taken off the Major League roster in 2009.

After being released out of Spring Training by the Nationals, Speier found a new love for teaching, fueled by his independent league and Japan experiences and a student assistant job at Radford while completing his bachelor’s degree. He now gives private pitching lessons.

It’s a content life with little looking back.

Well, except for one thing.

“I do miss the truck,” he said. “The moment the kids are old enough to climb up into it, I’ll probably get another one.”