Mandatory Minute: Rome, 5/15

The kids in the Grading The Week offices are a lot of things, but they are not unreasonable. (Stop snickering.) Few topics are off the table when it comes to taking the Mickey, as our pals across the pond like to say. The GTW team likes to brag that they can take it almost as well as they dish it out. And, to be frank, there are a lot of things the kids are perfectly fine with shaming CU Buffs fans for right now.

The Rockies are off to the worst start in franchise history, and questions need to be asked. They entered a weekend series at Pittsburgh with a 7-24 record, putting them on pace to finish 37-125. While they will likely improve on their .226 winning percentage, enabling them to avoid contending with the expansion 1962 New York Mets (40-120) as one of the worst teams in MLB history, another 100-loss season appears probable. The Rockies, amid a youth movement, have intriguing talent on the current roster and in their farm system, but they are a bad team right now.

The best thing about rock bottom is the bottom part. It has no delusions of adequacy, and knows its friends are Antarctica, the 1997-98 Denver Nuggets and “Tiger Blood” Charlie Sheen. The worst thing is the rock. Or in this case, the Rockies. They are playing baseball so poorly that there is a growing suspicion that they might do it worse than any team in the modern history of the sport.

The Rockies, oh so desperately needed someone to make a big splash. Two players delivered Friday night — one of them literally — in the Rockies’ 3-2 win over the Pirates at PNC Park. Ryan McMahon led off the Rockies’ three-run sixth inning with a 445-foot homer that splashed down in the Allegheny River.

When a governor is serving as your hype man and a mayor is volunteering himself as your aide for the afternoon, you’re having a pretty good day. When the day itself is proclaimed in your honor, all the better. That was Friday on the west steps of the state capitol for Randy Gradishar. The Broncos legend and 2024 Pro Football Hall of Fame inductee soaked in a sunny May 3 afternoon that Gov.

Before taking on Tim Connelly’s Timberwolves in the playoffs for the second time in as many years, Nikola Jokic tipped his cap to the general manager who drafted him. The Nuggets center pointed out how dramatically the perception of Connelly’s 2022 blockbuster trade has changed since last year, when Minnesota was the No.