With one mighty swing and a flurry of fist-pumps on a freezing Denver evening, the Blake Street Bombers were born.
Dante Bichette’s walk-off homer in the 14th inning of the first game at Coors Field on April 26, 1995, remains seared into the memory of Rockies diehards 30 years later. The three-run blast and his iconic celebration that followed, which rallied the Rockies to an 11-9 victory over the Mets in a see-saw game that lasted nearly five hours, remains an all-time franchise memory.
Though the phrase Blake Street Bombers wouldn’t come into the local vernacular until later that season — when broadcaster Wayne Hagin said it on the radio after Bichette mentioned it to him in the clubhouse — the Rockies’ first homer at 20th and Blake was the group’s genesis.
“With the Blake Street Bombers, what we were legendary at was, no lead was safe in our park,” Bichette said. “That homer probably was the hit that set that tone. We would go into the sixth, seventh inning down three runs and we knew we could win that game. That was the personality of our team and what we became.”
In the two years prior while playing at Mile High Stadium, the Rockies started to establish a reputation as a high-octane offense at elevation. But that distinction was cemented in the first season at Coors Field when the full Blake Street Bombers cast took shape.
Larry Walker, already regarded as one of the best players in the game, signed with the club three weeks before that opening day to launch his Hall of Fame career in Colorado. Andres Galarraga was coming off consecutive stellar seasons in Denver. Bichette was developing into a potent power hitter. Vinny Castilla was entering his first season as Colorado’s starting third baseman, and Ellis Burks’ 1995 campaign was a precursor to an All-Star year the next summer.
That power-hitting quintet propelled Colorado to the National League wild card in ’95 for the club’s first playoff berth, the quickest any expansion team had advanced to the postseason at that time.
“Dante’s homer was the start of the belief that we were a playoff team,” noted Joe Girardi, the Rockies catcher who was on second base at the time.
On a 2-1 count, Bichette jumped on a hanging changeup served up by Braves southpaw Mike Remlinger. Bichette smashed it into the left-field bleachers for the win.
That was moments after Bichette whiffed on the first strike of the at-bat, prompting ESPN broadcaster Jon Miller to comment to his partner Joe Morgan, “Joe, is Bichette pressing a little bit tonight?” To which Morgan replied, “Well, it seems like he’s going for it, or trying to hit the ball out of the ballpark.”
Bichette confirmed that Morgan was correct: He was swinging for the fences.
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“It was an emotional night for me because I wasn’t sure I was going to be with the team and sign back with them until maybe a couple weeks before that,” Bichette recalled. “I got to spring training late. Don Baylor had called me and said, ‘Hey, I want you back.’ I don’t get an opportunity to keep playing in the big leagues (after 1992) if it’s not for Don Baylor.
“I was on my last leg then, nobody would give me a chance, but he really believed in me. … So once he called me (in April 1995) and asked me back, there was no question: I was coming.”
While the walk-off propelled Colorado as a team following the 1994-95 strike, it was also a springboard for Bichette.
He went on to have a career year, leading the National League with 40 homers and also pacing baseball with 197 hits and 128 RBIs. He batted .340 with an NL-best .620 slugging and 359 total bases.
Despite that, Bichette fell short of the franchise’s first MVP award, a feat achieved by Walker two seasons later. Reds shortstop Barry Larkin won the honor instead in what Girardi argues was the first obvious case of bias against hitters at Coors Field.
“I was kind of shocked that he didn’t win it,” said Girardi, who went on to manage the Yankees and is now a broadcaster for YES Network. “Not to take anything away from Barry Larkin, but we got the negative perception of the Coors Field effect. (Even with that) Bichette still hit .340. And he didn’t strike out very much.”
Bichette, who was an All-Star that year and won his first and only Silver Slugger Award, doesn’t hold a grudge over the MVP that could’ve been. And he says that walk-off to christen Coors Field remains the most heartfelt moment of his career — and the moment fans still bring up to him the most.
“I get people all the time when I do appearances, they say, ‘I was there the night you hit the home run!’ And usually I’m like, ‘You lying,'” Bichette laughed. “Because there weren’t too many people left there at the end. The wind chill was absolutely freezing that night.”
Phillip Foster II, a 44-year-old lifetime Rockies fan from Denver, was among those who hung around with frosted breath.
Then 14, Foster and his dad were leaving the game from their seats in section 122 when the teenager implored his dad to stop at the edge of the concourse to see Bichette’s at-bat. It was Foster’s first Rockies game.
When Bichette connected, Foster recalls it as “the moment I fell in love with Coors Field and my hometown team.” Adding to the limerence was getting to soak in the walk-off with his dad, who had his arms around him during the at-bat.
“It was a communal celebration all around, high-fiving the ushers and other fans,” said an emotional Foster, whose dad died last month. “It was a big hug from (my dad), and then a very slow walk to the car. I couldn’t feel a thing from the cold (because of the adrenaline).
“Since then, when I’m at Rockies games, no matter how bad they play, I still remember those times with my dad. I remember the World Series run, the competitive seasons, the (Nolan) Arenado Father’s Day walk-off cycle. For me, I always figure out a way to focus on and go back to all those good memories, and all the joy that place has brought me.”
While the record-setting attendance seasons at Mile High Stadium before Bichette’s walk-off foretold how Coors Field would become a magnet for fans, regardless of the quality of the on-field product, the homer was also an omen of the hitting beast that the stadium would become.
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“Holds true today just as well as it did 30 years ago,” noted original season ticket holder Jim Noland, 63, of Westminster.
If you ask Noland, this year’s Rockies — whose anemic offense is among the worst in baseball — would benefit from the swagger of the Shucky Ducky (the nickname for the way Bichette dropped his bat and then fist-pumped upon hitting a homer) that Bichette brought to the dish that cold night in 1995.
“The Rockies could use a few of the professional hitters from that team on the 2025 edition,” Noland quipped. “Not sure if he could still run, but Bichette could probably still hit .260.”
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