The Colorado Rockies are being sued because… they suck?
Well, that’s not the entire story. But it does apparently play a part of this complicated lawsuit that has a Colorado man suing the Rockies for negligence after he was struck in the face by a foul ball. The incident actually occurred during a game back in July of 2023, but Timothy Roeckel – who suffered “catastrophic and permanent injuries” from the impact of the baseball – is just now bringing the lawsuit to the Colorado-based MLB team.
Roeckel vs. The Rockies has a nice ring to it, does it not?
As the story goes, Roeckel was sitting in luxury box when a foul ball was hit by a Rockies batter in the bottom of the first inning. Before you go saying, “Oh boo hoo, this guy was in a suite at a major league game,” the Colorado man was actually just a guest of the box owner, and did not have to pay for the ticket to the event.
The lawsuit claims that it “was not physically possible for (Roeckel) to see the foul ball from the seat in question,” and that “architectural elements including the ceiling of the luxury box and the overhang of the stadium’s bleacher seats” also played a factor in the man not seeing the foul ball hurling his way.
But that’s not the best defense that the lawsuit brings to the table.
Well, that actually might be the best… but it’s not my favorite defense they are using. The other reason that attorney Nielsen Weisz brought up in the lawsuit was that the Colorado Rockies aren’t good at baseball. Specifically, the claim stated “defendant’s longstanding poor performance on the field (has) contributed to a game-day environment in which spectators, particularly those in luxury suites, are less engaged with the action on the field.”
Translation: Timothy Roeckel wasn’t looking for a foul ball to come his way at all because he wasn’t even watching the game in the first place.
The attorneys went on to say that the Rockies, in an attempt to keep attendance up even as the team has struggled in recent years, has gone through a culture shift that no longer puts the emphasis on the baseball itself. Roeckel’s team claims this shift “is not incidental but rather encouraged by (the Rockies’) own marketing and design choices, which emphasize hospitality and off-field amenities over fan vigilance.”
That’s simply hilarious… and it could work. Imagine that the Colorado Rockies are found negligent in this lawsuit, and one of the main reasons they are guilty is because they’ve got a horrible baseball team. How could fans be expected to watch a team that’s so miserably bad (they are currently on pace in 2025 to have the most losses in a season all time)?
There’s still a long way to go with the lawsuit though, and Roeckel’s team of attorneys will have to overcome the Colorado law that protects stadiums from liability when fans become injured or hurt at games. If they can make an argument that the Rockies didn’t do enough to make their stadium and it’s sight lines safe, or somehow conclude that the Rockies are so unwatchable that the state law protecting stadiums can be thrown out, they just might be able to win the lawsuit.
And there’s no doubt that the Colorado Rockies suck.
