Rockies embrace Faith Day, Jeremy Camp

Jere­my Camp per­forms at Coors Field as part of the Col­orado Rock­ies’ Faith Day. Pho­tos by Eliza Marie Somers

Faith Day at Coors Field took on a much deep­er mean­ing this year as the Rock­ies and their fans con­tin­ue to deal with the sud­den death of pres­i­dent Keli McGre­gor, who passed away in April.

“Faith Day had been going on in oth­er ball­parks for sev­er­al years, and Keli real­ly pushed to have Faith Day here,” Rock­ies gen­er­al man­ag­er Dan O’Dowd said. “More than any­body it rep­re­sents how he lived his life. Keli real­ly loved Faith Day.”

Faith Day, in its sixth “sea­son” with the Rock­ies, fea­tured Gram­my Award nom­i­nee and mul­ti­ple Dove Award win­ner Jere­my Camp per­form­ing after the game. But before the game, Camp lead wor­ship and shared his tes­ti­mo­ny with the team and coach­es. Watch an inter­view with Jere­my Camp

“Faith Day is about keep­ing things in per­spec­tive,” man­ag­er Jim Tra­cy said. “Life has its ups and downs, highs and lows and some­where in between is nor­mal­cy. And it’s good to have that per­spec­tive.

“If you look at our sea­son it has been the same way — highs and lows. But some how, we’ve been able to draw strength and car­ry on,” Tra­cy explained. “We’ve been hit in the stom­ach a lot this year, but we have not made any excus­es. And Keli hat­ed excus­es. I tru­ly believe that we have drawn some strength from him. Look, we lost our pres­i­dent, I don’t know how you can get hit any hard­er.”

The no-excus­es theme res­onat­ed in the Rock­ies’ lock­er room after the team’s 6–5 vic­to­ry over the Brew­ers on Sun­day. The Rock­ies punc­tu­at­ed the ninth inning with dra­ma when they let the Brew­ers score two runs to tie the game 5–5.

With the bases loaded and two outs, the Brew­ers’ Corey Hart hit a high pop­up toward sec­ond base where Clint Barmes ran in from the skirt of the infield. But as he posi­tioned him­self under the ball a gust of wind came up and blew it just off the tip of his glove, allow­ing two runs to score and take away Ubal­do Jimenez’s 18th win of the sea­son — which would have set a fran­chise record.

“I have no excus­es for it,” Barmes said. “I should have caught that ball. I took the win away from him. I don’t know,” he added shak­ing his head.

Stand­ing next to Barmes, Jimenez was talk­ing with a gag­gle of reporters, say­ing, “Any sec­ond base­man in the league would not have caught that ball.”

Dur­ing the Rock­ies’ pregame wor­ship ser­vice, Camp urged the play­ers to be account­able with their lives.

“These guys are on a stage too,” Camp said, “and you have to serve with your heart, not just talk about it. You say you love the Lord, but you have to spend time read­ing the word and serv­ing.”

Along with the con­cert by Camp, the Rock­ies also had sev­er­al kid-friend­ly activ­i­ties set up on the club that includ­ed fin­ger paint­ing.