Amidst the ups and downs of playing for a small-medium market club for your career Todd Helton has been about the only constant in a Colorado Rockies uniform.  Todd’s 13 year MLB career in my opinion has been Cooperstown worthy. He is a career .320 hitter, 300 plus home-runs and 500 doubles and counting.

On July 22, Todd Helton became the fastest MLB player to reach 500 doubles in a career.  There have only been 49 players to previously reach the mark and 46 of them are in the Hall of Fame.  Craig Biggio, Edgar Martinez and Pete Rose are the only players from the 500 Double club to not currently be in the Hall.  Both Biggio and Martinez are not eligible yet and Rose of course is ineligible at this time.  To me this makes this club one of the most prestigious in baseball history and to be the fastest player to reach it in history is a remarkable feat. All the numbers prove that Helton should be the first Colorado Rockies player to be enshrined into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

In the era we are in today with all the acquisitions of performance enhancing drugs being used, Helton has managed to by pass all of them.  Although some remarks were made of Helton in 2007, nothing was proven.  Sure his power numbers dipped a little bit throughout the years but he also was sidelined with a pretty serious back injury which could have contributed to the decline of those stats.

The Rockies made a remarkable run in 2007 and are in the hunt for the wild card this year.  Todd has provided this team and franchise with much needed leadership and has proved to be the greatest Colorado Rockies player to date.

Throughout the years in town Helton has battled many trade rumors and skeptics.  And although the owners have managed to rid themselves of high priced players throughout the years Helton has never bad mouthed the organization.  The team has been known to lose more than win throughout Helton’s playing career and he has still played hard throughout.

Helton has been a staple for the team since 1997 at the plate and at first base.  Tallying three gold gloves and providing leadership to the organization on and off the field, Helton has helped Colorado gain notoriety as a MLB franchise.  We can only hope the baseball writers out there see it the same way. So I can only say as a fan, we hope for many more years with Helton at first, and we thank him for his contributions to date.

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