As a Brewers reliever in November 1992, the Rockies selected Darren Holmes with the fifth pick in the expansion draft. He wasn’t exactly pumped about the prospect of leaving Milwaukee to join a new franchise in an unfamiliar city, where the ball was most certainly going to fly.
But the mind of Colorado’s now-bullpen coach was changed upon arriving in Denver, where he quickly recognized the importance of professional baseball to a region that had clamored for it.
“I enjoyed Milwaukee — I liked the people there, I liked the city, so it was a little bit of, ‘Ah, man,’ because I didn’t want to leave,” Holmes said.