Dahl: All-away stint in Double-A helped prep for MLB fans

DENVER — The multitudes of Cubs fans who are making Coors Field their home during a three-game weekend series don’t bother Rockies rookie center fielder David Dahl. He knows what it’s like to never actually have a home game.

Dahl made his first 76 appearances this season with the Double-A Hartford Yard Goats, a team whose stadium was never completed. The entire season is a tour of the Eastern League. Hartford receives designated “home” games in which they bat in the bottom of innings, but that’s not the same.

“Just playing in stadiums where people are rooting against you all the time just gets you ready for the bigger stage — especially teams like the Cubs, whose fans are going crazy, always yelling, making it like a road game,” Dahl said. “It prepared me for this. I hope all the guys still there are doing well.”

The Goats without a Yard have managed a 70-54 record, a solid season no matter the circumstance. But with players living in hotels, with diets determined by whatever diner or fast-food place is available, receiving visits from loved ones and family in hotel rooms rather than apartments, it’s an accomplishment.

Dahl, 22, said the team has made the forced togetherness a positive.

“We’d go to lunch, go to dinner, all hang out,” Dahl said. “And there were off-days. One time we all went bowling — the whole team. Another time we went …

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