Rockies mountain high

In this sports-mad city, October usually means that ski resorts are opening and fans can safely turn their attention to the local civic religion: the Broncos of the National Football League.

The Colorado Rockies’ improbable entry into the World Series has changed that. Now, people who never heard of the infield fly rule are plotting to get tickets. Pedestrians proudly wear Rockies purple. And a team that as recently as August sold barely half of the seats in its ballpark has blown the Broncos off the covers of local newspapers.

“You’ve gotta love a winner,” said Kemper Chafin, 60, a paralegal who moved here from Santa Monica 10 years ago. An Angels fan, he said the fervor is nothing like he saw when that team made it to the postseason in 1986.

“This is the only game in town right now,” Chafin said. “This is a small town, really, and the locals are doing good.”

The Rockies’ turnaround is as much a step up in the hierarchy of Denver sports society as in the National League standings.

Since the late ‘90s, the team had fallen so far in public esteem that even Tom Clark, executive vice president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation and one of the people who convinced Major League Baseball in 1991 to locate the expansion franchise here, gave up his season tickets.

The Rockies broke the major league attendance record when they debuted in 1993, featuring a hard-hitting lineup whose power was augmented by the long-ball potential of the dry, thin air at a mile above sea level. But the owners began letting beloved players like Andres Galarraga go and spending huge sums on free agents who turned into busts. The team logged only four winning seasons in its first 13. Fans lost interest.

“When you’re watching a team that seems to be making decisions that don’t correspond with the conditions in the field, many of us went back to our old teams,” said Clark, a Chicago native and a Cubs fan.

It was particularly hard for the Rockies to hold fans’ attentions because sports aficionados here are spoiled. People could watch the Nuggets basketball team, the Avalanche hockey team or, of course, the Broncos. In the summer, the height of the baseball season, fans were happy to go trout fishing or mountain biking.

“In Colorado, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, you’ve got places to go,” Clark said. “Many of us chose the outdoor option.”

Those who went to games didn’t necessarily root for the home team. Two-thirds of Denver residents were born elsewhere, and Rockies games became an opportunity to pull for old favorites. As recently as August, the games normally featured a stadium filled to less than half its capacity, and cheers for the visiting team were lustier than for the hometown boys.

Then, on Sept. 16, the Rockies began their improbable run of 21 wins in 22 games. On the final day of the season in a packed stadium, they clinched a tie for the wild card. They won a come-from-behind regular season playoff game against the San Diego Padres, then swept the Philadelphia Phillies and Arizona Diamondbacks in the playoffs to claim their World Series berth.

To celebrate, newly minted fans poured into the streets around Coors Field in downtown Denver during the chilly playoff games. Scalpers who once struggled to sell tickets jacked prices up into the triple digits. Street vendors quadrupled the price of a bag of peanuts. Mayor John Hickenlooper dubbed last Tuesday “Purple Tuesday” to encourage residents to show their newfound love for the Rockies.

“The city’s just electric right now,” Hickenlooper said in an interview Friday. “It means life is worth living.” One of the few prominent long-term Rockies fans in town, the mayor acknowledged that the past few years had been tough.

“Let’s just say it’s been hard breathing from time to time,” he said.

The newspapers have been jammed with wall-to-wall coverage of how fans can get World Series tickets. (They will be sold beginning at 10 a.m. Monday on the Rockies website.)

Fans have already taken to the Internet to make bids in advance. One man offered his vintage Playboy magazine collection for tickets.

For Matt and Scott Braley, students at Metro State College in downtown Denver, the Rockies’ surge got them back into the national pastime.

“We stopped following the Rockies and turned to the Avs and the Broncos,” said Matt, 21, as his brother Scott nodded. “But now we’ve got a baseball team.”

The Braley brothers stood in the Rockies’ now-bustling dugout store, surrounded by T-shirts, pennants and caps declaring the team National League champions.

Sarah Merlino, 28, sped past with an armload of shirts to send to her parents in Grand Junction, 250 miles to the west.

Merlino’s family had never cared about the Rockies. Neither did she, before she spent a few sunny afternoons in the cheap bleacher seats this summer after moving to Denver. “I’ve just kind of been a fair-weather fan,” she said.

Now she’s happy to join in the excitement. “It’s bringing a lot of people together,” Merlino said. Her one fear is that with greater demand for tickets, it’ll be pricier to go to the game next year -- almost as expensive as seeing the Avalanche or the Nuggets.

The Rockies’ resurgence came just in time for Greg and Cindy Nyhoff. They’ve been fans of Colorado baseball since before the Rockies arrived, when Coloradans pulled for the minor league Denver Bears.

They’ve watched forlornly as other teams won the World Series. “It’s finally a Colorado team” that won, said Greg, 47, a native Coloradan.

“It’s good for our boys,” added Cindy, also 47. The couple’s sons are 13 and 17. “I don’t want the two to be Cardinals fans.”

The couple lives in Colorado Springs and regularly watches the Rockies’ AAA team there. They came to Denver for games only infrequently.

That changed as the Rockies went on their rampage, and the couple celebrated their wedding anniversary Monday at Coors Field as the Rockies won the playoffs.

They said they were tickled at how everyone in the state seemed to have adopted the team.

“It goes to show you,” Cindy said, “how badly people want to be happy.”

nicholas.riccardi@latimes.com