This team is really peaking

You can’t blame the good folks of Colorado for being on a Rocky Mountain high. Their baseball team is going to the World Series.

“The Boys of Rocktober have climbed the loftiest summit in baseball,� wrote Woody Paige in the Denver Post. “Look out, Pikes Peak, and look out world. From the mountains to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam, here come the Rockies.�

From Mike Littwin in the Rocky Mountain News: “Trying to explain how it is the Rockies are going to the World Series would just risk spoiling it. . . . I don’t know what it was -- except completely and entirely unexpected. Until, eventually, somehow, it became completely and entirely inevitable.�

Trivia time

The Rockies advanced to the World Series by going 7-0 in the postseason. Which is the only other major league team to have a 7-0 postseason record?

Expert opinion

Trying to explain the Rockies’ late-season success -- winning 21 of their last 22 games -- sports psychologist John F. Murray recently told the Denver Post, “I call it effortless effort. Some people call it ‘getting in the zone.’ That’s when athletes are less self-conscious of their effort. They don’t analyze things or dissect things, they just accept them and appreciate what’s going on. It’s about attention to the present.�

And then this

It was another poor showing for Mark Cuban on ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars� on Monday. Cuban’s score of 22 was lowest of the night.

Cuban’s dance partner, Kym Johnson, says he thinks way too much on the dance floor.

“He’s a super intelligent man and he writes everything down,� Johnson said. “That’s the way his mind works. . . . With dancing, you need to feel everything and he has to let himself go.�

Maybe Cuban, who generally doesn’t seem to be so careful in planning out his actions, should make an appointment with sports psychologist Murray.

Another kind of doctor

Regarding the lead item in Monday’s Morning Briefing about Andy Roddick’s playing tennis with a frying pan, reader Craig Woo remembers reading in Lee Trevino’s biography that when Trevino was a caddie he would bet unsuspecting golfers that he could beat them playing with a coke bottle wrapped in tape and attached to a broomstick.

A check on the Internet found several versions of this story. One was that he would tee off with the Coke bottle, hitting the ball about 100 yards down the middle, then reach the green with a three-wood.

In another version, Trevino is quoted saying he preferred using a Dr Pepper bottle. That must have earned him an endorsement check or two.

Another Tiger deal

Speaking of endorsements, it was announced Tuesday that Tiger Woods and Gatorade are coming out with a drink called Gatorade Tiger.

Look for a commercial in which Tiger, using a Gatorade bottle, tries to outhit Trevino and his Dr Pepper bottle.

Trivia answer

The 1976 Cincinnati Reds defeated the Philadelphia Phillies, 3-0, in the National League Championship Series and the New York Yankees, 4-0, in the World Series for a 7-0 record.

And finally

Outside New England, the Patriots are fast becoming the most hated team in the NFL, and not only because they’re undefeated or their coaches steal signals.

Bill Simmons, in his Page 2 column for ESPN.com, pointed out another problem: Even when a game is in hand, they stick it to their opponent.

In Sunday’s 48-27 victory at Dallas, fourth-string running back Kyle Eckel rammed home a touchdown on fourth and one with 19 seconds remaining.

“Normally, you take a knee there,� Simmons wrote.

A knee is what a lot of people around the NFL would like to give Bill Belichick.

[email protected]