Retired Numbers - Colorado Rockies
Another of the relatively young franchises in baseball, the Rockies have recently been realizing the greatness of their earliest stars. Todd Helton and Larry Walker, stars of their first decade, have been enshrined in the Hall of Fame. And while we wait for the first great forever-Rockies pitcher to emerge, the franchise isn't shying away from a couple of greats who took advantage of playing in the thin mountain air.
#17 - Todd Helton
The tragedy for me when it come to Todd Helton is all of his elite years happened in the OG Showdown era, and thus there are official cards for most of his seasons of 5 all stars, 3 Gold Gloves and 4 Silver Sluggers. Most of those years he garnered MVP consideration as well, but 2009 was one more year of top tier numbers. He is the greatest offensive player in Rockies history, with his 369 Home Runs, 1,401 RBI, 2,519 Hits and 1,401 Runs among other stats all being the top all time for Colorado. In 2007, he lead the Rockies to their only World Series.
#33 - Larry Walker
Larry Walker was already an established presence in the National League when he signed with the Rockies in 1995, but then his HoF star really took off. He brought in 5 Gold Gloves, 2 Silver Sluggers, 4 more all star trips and the 1997 MVP while hitting in Colorado, mostly before Todd Helton joined the party. The most prominent of the Blake Street Bombers, he led the team to it's first ever playoff berth in 1995 as the winners of the newly created Wild Card, back when there was only 1 WC spot per league (I can't believe I'm old enough to have to point that out). While he went on to star elsewhere in his career, in 2020 Cooperstown came calling and he became the first player to enter the Hall of Fame with a Rockies hat.
Keli McGregor
Keli Scott McGregor joined the Colorado Rockies organization in 1993 and worked his way up to becoming team president in 2001. After an unexpected death in 2010 due to a rare heart virus, the Rockies honored him with his initials KSM put up as a retired number. Today the initials still hang alongside the numbers of the Rockies immortals.
