Rockies Retread – May 14, 1993

Do you remember Mark Knudson? Me neither. But his time with the Rockies was interesting, interesting enough to be worth mentioning. For starters, he was the first Denver native to play for the club. He’s a CSU graduate who played baseball for the Rams before being drafted by the Astros in 1982. He went on to spend seven years in the majors, primarily with the Brewers. He compiled a 24-29 record and a 4.72 ERA.

After a season with the Padres, he signed with the Rockies in October 1992. He appeared in 4 games in a Colorado uniform, lasting a total of 5 2/3 innings and allowing 14 earned runs. His career with the Rockies was, shall we say, lackluster. He was granted free agency following this career and then retired. He seems to have found his calling now, writing a syndicated column and working as an analyst for The Mtn. sports network. I’ve never heard of this channel, but to be fair, I don’t actually live in the Denver area and haven’t for a very long time. If you do and you don’t have it, their website instructs you to “contact your cable or satellite provider and demand they add The Mtn. to their channel lineup.”

Back to Mark Knudson though. His final appearance was in this game against the Reds at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati (remember when stadiums had pretty names like that?). The Reds lineup seems to have been lifted out of the 1940s, featuring names like Bip Roberts and Cecil Espy (who, to my knowledge, has never won an Espy). But it also had some more familiar faces: Chris Sabo, Reggie Sanders, Barry Larkin. These guys jumped on Rockies starter Andy Ashby early, which, to be fair, is what most teams seemed to do.

In the 1st inning alone, Ashby gave up an RBI double to Larkin, a 2-run double to Sabo, and a 2-run home run to Sanders. After he allowed 3 more runs in the 3rd, he was yanked and replaced by Mark Knudson. Up till now, the Rockies had done nothing worth noting offensively, so the game was a lost cause. Still, you hate to see what happened to Knudson happen in his last career game.

He got out of the 3rd without any trouble and managed to allow only 1 run in the 4th on a Mitchell solo home run. But his 5th inning would end with 6 hits and 4 earned runs, putting the Reds up 13-2. Needless to say, the Rockies would not recover. Knudson’s ERA after this game was a dismal 22.24. He was granted free agency less than a week later.