It’s been enjoyable watching opening day baseball all afternoon on ESPN. It’s a welcome break for the network that I had begun calling “OSFN” (short for Off Season Football Network). With the temperature at 34 degrees and snow on the ground, there is limited opportunity for live baseball in Nebraska today.

Looking at opening day lineups and rosters is always a fun exercise and I already know that the PG office has gone over them in detail to update the Perfect Game Alumni List (more on that in another blog).

I had a scout contact me today to point out that the Colorado Rockies entire starting line up today is made up of players originally drafted and signed by the Rockies. The scout, not coincidently, happens to work for that team and was understandably proud of that fact. The entire domestic scouting staff and their veteran scouting director Bill Schmidt should be proud of it. I’m not going to check every team but I’m betting that the Rockies are the only team in baseball that can claim that. In fact, I would guess that it is a very, very rare happening and you’d have to back years to find something similar.

If anyone does know of another team who has been able to claim an all “Draft” lineup, please let me know.

Of course, the flip side of having a line up made up entirely of drafted home grown players is that the team hasn’t a) developed any Latin or Asian position players of note or kept them in the organization, b) traded for any such players, or c) signed any such players as free agents.

Here’s a rundown of the Rockies starting line up Monday.

1B Todd Helton (1^st Rd/1995, U. Tennessee)

2B Ian Stewart (1^st Rd/2003, LaQuinta (CA) HS)

SS Troy Tulowitzki (1^st Rd/2005, Long Beach State)

3B Garrett Atkins (5^th Rd/2000, UCLA)

LF Seth Smith (2^nd Rd/2004, U. Mississippi)

CF Ryan Spilborghs (7^th Rd/2002, UC Santa Barbara)

RF Brad Hawpe (11^th Rd/2000, Louisiana State)

C Chris Iannetta (4^th Rd/2004, North Carolina)

RHP Aaron Cook (2^nd Rd/1997, Hamilton (OH) HS)

It’s worth mentioning that three of the Rockies bench players, OF Dexter Fowler (14^th Rd/2004), IF Clint Barmes (10^th Rd/2000) and IF Jeff Baker (2^nd Rd/2002) were also drafted and signed by the Rockies. Fowler is a potential future All-Star and will get plenty of playing time as the season progresses.

The Rockies pitching staff is more mixed demographically, with four pitchers that the Rockies signed and developed out of Latin America.