DENVER - Todd Helton wandered amid the champagne and beer sprays with the look of an accident victim, dazed and a little bit unbelieving. You could not help but wonder about the emotions he was experiencing.
For 10 years, Helton arguably has been the best hitter in baseball - but he never had played on a Colorado Rockies team as good as he was. He never had played in October, when everyone is watching. He never had felt the sting of champagne in his eyes.
A long time. "Yeah," Helton said, understanding where the conversation was going, although it wasn't so much a conversation as it was a shouting match from only about a foot apart, necessitated by the music and the yelling and the pandemonium in the Rockies' clubhouse on Monday night.
They had scored three runs in the bottom of the 13th inning to win a one-game playoff against the San Diego Padres. They had erased a final, two-run deficit off Padres closer Trevor Hoffman, the all-time leader in saves. They had used 10 pitchers and every ounce of everything they had, pushed on by a bellowing mob at Coors Field. Helton was standing on first base when Matt Holliday scored the winning run on a Jamey Carroll sacrifice fly.
A long time. Only everything hung there - but, most especially, a berth in the National League Division Series, beginning today against the Phillies - as Helton watched from first, as home-plate umpire Tim McClelland waited and waited before calling Holliday safe.
And the emotion?
"I guess relief," Helton said.
The man did not need this as validation of his career. The numbers speak for themselves. In fact, they scream. You really can argue the case that Helton has been baseball's best hitter over the last 10 years.
Now, there is the Barry Bonds fellow to consider, and Albert Pujols and Manny Ramirez are in there, too - but that is why it is an argument, not an absolute.
Parsing greatness really can be tiring sometimes, and really unnecessary, but Helton's case is compelling: 10 straight years with better than a .300 average, and 8 of those years at .320 or better (including .320 this season). He is in baseball's all-time career top 10 in slugging percentage and on-base percentage.
In the Rockies' biggest game on Monday night, he homered and had a sacrifice fly. He hit .390 in September. He leads the National League this year with a .434 on-base percentage. He hasn't made an error at first base in 91 straight games.
It is relentless excellence. And now, Helton plays alongside Holliday (the Rockies' MVP candidate) and Troy Tulowitzki (the presumed NL Rookie of the Year) and a roomful of gamers very much in the mold of the Phillies. He has survived the building and the rebuilding of his team's roster to reach this point: shirt soaked, dazed look, the target of everyone in the room. They all wanted to spray Todd Helton, or pound on the back of Todd Helton, or hug Todd Helton.
"I don't think words can describe what we went through out there, from the ups to the downs to the battling back," he said, between dousings. "Can you believe it? I can't believe it . . . It's pretty much what this team is about. Battling. Just battling.
"Every guy on this team deserves this . . . We put in a lot of blood, sweat and tears for this. Everybody, everybody deserves this, everybody in this whole franchise. I can't describe it. I really can't believe what just happened. I knew we would battle back in that situation. I knew we would put up a fight. But you're still going up against the greatest closer of all time. Your odds are pretty slim at that point. To be able to overcome that, it's just crazy."
Then, later: "We've still got work to do, still got a battle, but this is something you look forward to your whole life."
The rebuilding of this team, by general manager Dan O'Dowd, has been slow, methodical. Now 34, Helton would not have been human if he hadn't wondered if it would come together while he was still an elite player.
But that was then. Now people are asking him if this Rockies team is a team of destiny. Helton said, "Who knows? We've got to go out and battle another hot team . . .
"We've been through an awful lot. It's in our hands now. We're going to go out and see what we can do. We're going to enjoy it, too, while we do it."
A long time, though.
Again, you didn't have to ask it.
"It's big, there's no doubt about it," Helton said, nodding his head. "There's no doubt about it. It's a special time and I'm going to enjoy it . . . I want to get to the World Series and experience that, but I'm going to enjoy this. It is so exciting."
The celebration just went on and on. No one seemed to want to leave the Rockies' clubhouse. And as he bounced from one joyful knot of teammates to the next, you couldn't help but wonder, after all this time, if it was everything that Todd Helton had dreamed it would be.
"It is, it is," he said. "But I would like to be a little drier." *
Send e-mail to hofmanr@phillynews.com.
For recent columns, go to
http://go.philly.com/hofmann.
