Colorado Rockies: The mixed thoughts and opinions of Nolan Arenado’s Thursday comments

There was some controversy between Rockies fans and their former third baseman.

After the game, he spoke to Jim Hayes of Bally Sports Midwest about the home run and you can watch that below.

Jeff Jones of The Belleville News-Democrat said tweeted this:

While he did not say it in the interview with Bally Sports West, Arenado did say it .. but he told the media about it on Zoom after the game.

This may be a questionable statement from Arenado considering that you could contend that Arenado did have a curtain call in the game with the walkoff home-run that completed the cycle.

There’s semantics on whether or not it was a “curtain call” or not (like since he didn’t go in the dugout and return but just stayed out on the field after it, is it a “curtain call”) but either way, that was a pretty big moment in his career.

Arenado also acknowledged this to the St. Louis media before saying he never had a curtain call before.

“This was one of the greatest moments,” said Arenado on hitting the home run during the Cardinals home opener. “You know, I’ve been fortunate to hit a couple homers, hit a homer for the cycle one time and … that still probably tops this just a little bit. But I’ve bever gotten a curtain call before and to get one of those was just an unbelieveable feeling. Never had that.”

You can watch Arenado’s comment below.

This came on the heels of Arenado’s teammate, Adam Wainwright, saying earlier that Arenado was sending video of himself hitting to show the Cardinals front office “when he was trying to get traded over here.”

So what we have is a lot to unpack.

1) Did Nolan Arenado sign a contract extension two years ago just to be traded?

Honestly, we’ll likely never know this answer.

However, thinking is that Arenado wanted to be traded before he even signed the contract officially is … suspect.

The likely scenario is that Arenado signed the contract and then, mid-season, saw the team was on the downward slide (for which they have continued since), and then requested a trade.

But with the pandemic, he likely wouldn’t have opted out after 2021 anyways because with opting out he likely wouldn’t have gotten a better contract on the open market, especially with the collective-bargaining agreement coming up this offseason.

So, it stands to reason that he would not sign a huge contract extension and not ask for an opt-out clause. After all, Rockies GM Jeff Bridich admitted that he and the Rockies front office added it in for him.

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2) Did Nolan Arenado never have a curtain call as a Rockie?

In short, yes. I think that likely, he meant to say that he didn’t have one of that magnitude.

Sometimes people don’t believe that athletes are fallible but they are. Sometimes, players are caught up in the moment of things and say things that they a) don’t realize they said or b) said incorrectly.

Like I mentioned earlier, it could even be a semantics game that the cycle was not a “curtain call” because it was a walk-off and he never left the field.

But he admitted that the home run that completed the cycle on Father’s Day 2017 “still probably tops this just a little bit.” So it’s still a moment that he says he remembers fondly on.

Also, the Rockies drew great attendance numbers for much of Arenado’s career with the team, even when they weren’t playing well.

So, these questions may not be able to be definitively answered (at least right now) but, there’s always some food for thought when looking back to some of the best moments in Rockies history.