GREELEY — Charlie Monfort sat down for breakfast at Roasty’s Diner, one of his favorite local eateries in his beloved hometown. Wearing a National Baseball Hall of Fame cap and a Utah Utes T-shirt in honor of his alma mater, the 65-year-old Monfort appeared relaxed. He laughed often and easily.
He said that the problems with alcohol that derailed his active role as one of the Rockies’ founders and principal owners are in the past. He’s repaired his relationship with Dick Monfort, his older brother and the club’s owner, chairman, CEO, and ultimate decision-maker.
But there is irony here. For just as Charlie has emerged from the dark shadows of his past, his beloved Rockies are in the worst place they’ve been in their 33-year history. He ponders what the team must do as it careens toward a seventh straight losing season, with a third consecutive 100-loss campaign all but assured, and the club staring down the possibility of losing more games than any team in baseball’s modern era.
Though he’s not in a position to steer the franchise as he once did, he said significant changes are needed in the front office, and he’s told Dick that in no uncertain terms.
“The Rockies are still my baby,” he told The Denver Post between sips of black coffee on Wednesday morning. “I see what the fans see, and it crushes me. I’m one of those people who compartmentalize, so I try not to think too much about it. But if you pry me open …”
Monfort paused for a moment before continuing.
“Every time I see that team and how it’s doing, it makes me want to cry,” he said. “Because I have the memories of the past, just like the fans do.”
What is Charlie’s solution?
“I think we need a new set of eyeballs,” he said. “We need to give someone the opportunity. Someone who knows baseball and has lived and breathed baseball, and sometimes, died with baseball.
“Someone who knows everything that all of the good teams we face do, from grassroots on up. Someone who is going to stand by their decisions because they are going to live with it.”
Rockies co-owner Charlie Monfort enjoys a quiet moment after breakfast at Roasty's Diner in Greeley (Photo by Patrick Saunders, The Denver Post)Dick, 71, the lightning rod for the fans’ wrath in recent years, agrees — to a certain extent. At least, that’s what he told The Post during a phone interview Friday morning, though he declined to delve into specifics about what personnel changes are being contemplated.
“That’s not only Charlie’s opinion, it’s the public’s in general, and I get it,” Dick said. “There is a criticism, which is fair, that we are very loyal, insular, and we promote from within.”
However, Dick also noted, as others have, that playing baseball at altitude in Denver is a different animal.
“We have this dynamic of playing somewhere where nobody else plays,” he said. “It’s easier for an outsider to say, ‘Well, I would do this, or I would have done that.’ This is a tough place to play. It has its little intricacies that other places don’t.
“But I agree that what has gone on over the last few years is not representative of what we want. I think there are a lot of reasons for that. But it probably is time to have somebody who has a fresh opinion, a fresh set of eyes. … I’m not opposed to bringing people in from the outside.”
‘I trust Charlie’
While Dick remains the boss of the Rockies and makes the final decisions about the club’s personnel, Charlie has more of a voice in the team’s direction than he has in years.
“I trust Charlie, and more importantly, Charlie is a smart guy,” Dick said. “He sometimes doesn’t act like it, but he is absolutely a guy of substance.”
Charlie has a bachelor’s degree in marketing and business management from Utah. Before he became one of the Rockies’ owners, he served in leading roles in the Monfort family’s cattle and meatpacking company.
Over the last couple of years, the brothers have met regularly, and Charlie attends the partners’ meetings. While he doesn’t have a hand in the Rockies’ day-to-day operations, Dick said that Charlie is involved in decisions that are “newsworthy.” For example, when longtime manager Bud Black was fired in May following the team’s 7-33 start, Charlie weighed in.
“We have talked a lot, and I think Charlie is more engaged now than he was a few years ago,” Dick said.
From left to right, Colorado Rockies head coach Jim Leyland talks with Rockies owners Charlie and Dick Monfort at spring training camp in Tucson, Arizona, Feb. 26, 1999. (Photo by Andy Cross/The Denver Post)Charlie’s Rockies roots run deep. A Colorado native, he and Dick are the sons of Kenneth Monfort, the millionaire beef baron who died in 2001. “Kenny” owned Monfort of Colorado Inc., a meatpacking and distributing company based in Greeley that was acquired by ConAgra Foods in 1987.
In 1992, while Dick continued to head operations for ConAgra, Charlie sunk $10 million of his ConAgra stock into Rockies’ limited stock. When the original ownership group headed by Mickey Monus and John Antonucci crumbled, Charlie put up an additional $8.5 million to purchase the controlling general partnership stock.
While Monus served a 10-year sentence in prison after being convicted of 109 counts of fraud and embezzlement related to his Phar-Mor chain of drugstores, Charlie helped rescue the Rockies.
He was involved in the team’s business operations and was Dick’s boss until Charlie’s battle with alcohol made that role untenable. He was twice arrested in Northern Colorado for driving under the influence, first in 1999 and again in 2016.
“I’m extremely disappointed in myself for the decision I made to drink and drive and the potential risk I caused to other innocent people,” Monfort said in a statement released by the Rockies after his second DUI.
Looking back on those days, Charlie says now, “I see pictures of myself back then and I think, ‘Oh my God.'”
‘I wasn’t all there’
According to Charlie, his role with the Rockies began to disintegrate in April 2010 when team president Keli McGregor died at age 47 of a rare virus that infected his heart muscle.
Rockies owner Charlie Monfort sobs as he hugs an unidentified man before the memorial service for Rockies President Keli McGregor at Coors Field in Denver, April 25, 2010. His wife, Vanessa Monfort, stands just behind him to the right. (Photo by Judy DeHaas/The Denver Post)“It sounds like kind of a cop out, but Keli and I got along really well,” Charlie said. “But when he passed away, and I was going through my divorce … I was in a bad place.
“There was the booze. In 2010, ’11 and ’12, Dick took control (as president) after Keli’s passing, I gave all that up. Because with Keli not being there, it wasn’t the same, and I got into a bad place with alcohol and stuff. I wasn’t capable of making decisions. I squared myself away from time to time, but never enough to really add much. I lost trust with Dick, and, quite frankly, I don’t blame him, because I wasn’t all there.”
Dick remembers that period a little differently.
“I don’t think we were ever in a bad place, but (the relationship) did become strained,” he said. “There were some times, yes, when some things caused some problems, but I think that happens with any siblings.
“We are different people. I’m more conservative. He’s very outgoing. People love Charlie and he’s easygoing. I’m a little more structured and a little more stern. But it was good for both of us, and we needed to play off each other. I was often jealous of the fact that he had an easiness to him that I never did. But we worked together a lot at the Rockies, and for a time, Charlie was actually the boss.”
But, in Dick’s opinion, Charlie grew tired of baseball’s daily grind.
“He loves to travel and he loves to meet people and do things, and I’m more of a sit and ground everything out kind of guy,” Dick said.
Asked if he misses being more involved with the Rockies, Charlie reminisced about the “characters in the game” who used to make up MLB’s franchise ownership class — people like George Steinbrenner, Jackie Autry and August Busch III.
The game has changed a lot since the Monforts first got into the business. Several teams have changed hands as franchise valuations have risen into the billions of dollars and payrolls have risen with them. Forbes estimates the Rockies franchise to be worth $1.475 billion — a far cry from the $95 million expansion fee paid by the Rockies in 1993.
“I say to Dick, ‘Do you guys have any fun?’ We used to smoke cigars and tell stories. He said, ‘No, we don’t do that. We just go to the meetings,” Charlie said. “It’s just a different day. I don’t think I would like it as much, though I would probably handle it differently.”
‘Rockies Balboa’
Charlie declined to talk about the specifics of his drinking problem with The Post or how long he’s been sober. But, he insisted he’s been sober for “some time.”
“I don’t even know my (sobriety) day,” he said. “I will tell you that I have had relapses off and on, but not for a long time. Once I said to myself, ‘This is not good for me, this is not fun anymore,’ I didn’t want to drink anymore.”
Dick said his younger brother is “absolutely” in a better place, and cited Charlie’s willingness to talk publicly as a good sign.
“I don’t think, in the past, he would never acknowledge to anybody what he told (The Post),” Dick said. “I think that is a big step. I was somewhat shocked to hear he did that. So, I think he’s in a good place. I hope he is. I’m happy for him. I love Charlie.”
Colorado Rockies co-owner Charlie Monfort, front, joins his brother and co-owner, Dick, in surveying the crowd during a ceremony to retire the number of retired first baseman's Todd Helton before the Rockies host the Cincinnati Reds in a baseball game in Denver on Aug. 17, 2014. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)Related Articles
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While attending a fundraiser for the Utah Utes baseball program, Charlie bought a trip during the auction to tour the paddocks at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York. He quickly fell in love with horse racing. Months later, after the trip, he got talked into purchasing a 2-year-old thoroughbred race horse for $150,000. He named it “Rockies Balboa” because Charlie loves Balboa Park in San Diego, loves the underdog stories of Rocky Balboa and Seabiscuit, and, of course, because of the baseball team.
“Rockies Balboa” is currently being trained in Kentucky, and even though $150,000 is not a lot to pay for a thoroughbred, the horse has shown well, and Charlie hopes the horse might run in marquee races next year.
“They say he’s got an opportunity to be a real horse,” he said.
Charlie said he spends most of his time in Greeley these days. He adores the “Midwest feel” of the town and referred to it as “God’s country” in a message sent to The Post. As recently as 2019, he traveled to all seven continents in one year. But he said he doesn’t travel quite as much now.
“People ask me, ‘What do you do all day?’ And I say, “I don’t know, but I stay pretty busy.’ ”
‘Back in the game’
Baseball and the Rockies remain near and dear to Charlie’s heart.
Charlie attended Todd Helton’s Hall of Fame induction party last July in Cooperstown, prompting Helton to remark how much better Charlie looked.
“To hear people like Todd say that means a lot,” Charlie said. “I’m back in the game now.”
Even with the franchise floundering, Charlie estimated he’s already attended more Rockies games this season than he has in years. And now he’s thinking about what needs to be done, and who needs to be brought on board to get the Rockies on track.
Dick’s sons, Walker and Sterling, both work in the front office, and there has been speculation they could be elevated to new roles. A pocket of the fanbase, meanwhile, has been calling for the Monforts to sell the team for years. But that remains unlikely.
Neither Dick or Charlie would talk about specifics, but both anticipate changes.
“We have all sorts of different judges — you guys (the media) — who can tell when things are bad,” he said. “Him or her, whoever it might be, they have to be accountable to not only Dick and I, but they have to be accountable to the press, and the public.
“That’s the biggest thing. That’s who’s getting hurt the most by this — the fans. We have the best place to play baseball (in Coors Field). It’s a tough baseball environment, strategically, being a mile high. But we should use that as an advantage, like we used to.”
Just as necessary, Charlie said, is changing the Rockies’ image.
“We have to get back to letting the public know that we give a crap,” he said. “I think sometimes fans think we don’t care. I read about it. They think it’s a money-making machine at Coors Field, which is far from the truth. But I don’t blame them for thinking that. The quality of the product is not what we expect, either.
“We have to give them at least some hope and faith that we do care and that we want to get this thing moving in the right direction.”
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