What, is it the purple jerseys?

Close your eyes for a minute.

I'm going to tell you about a baseball team. They're a good baseball team - 12 games over .500 in Major League Baseball this season. They're the National League Wild Card leaders. They are still within striking distance of the division leader - the best team in the NL all year long.

This team I'm telling you about is eight games over .500 at home this year, but they're also four games over .500 on the road. No team has won more road games in 2009 than they have.

Since June 4th, this squad has gone 42-18 - the best record in the MLB in that span - with series sweeps including at St. Louis, at Milwaukee and at home against Seattle. They just took three-of-four from the Chicago Cubs, scoring 33 runs along the way.

This team has scored 562 runs total this year, the second-most in the NL and sixth-most in all of baseball. Perhaps most impressive is that, despite playing in an overwhelmingly hitter-friendly ballpark, there are only five teams in the NL that have allowed less runs this year. Their run differential (+67) is second best in the league, too.

What's more, this team has the NL Saves leader, a starting staff with the sixth-best ERA in the NL to go along with the fifth-best fielding percentage.

If I told you all of that - along with the fact that the team plays 29 of its remaining 50 games at home - would you say that team has a pretty darn good shot at making the playoffs? That this team is clearly a very good team - perhaps among the best in the MLB? Sure you would.

Okay, you can open your eyes now.

The team I've been telling you about is the Colorado Rockies. And, if you're like 99% of the baseball-watching world outside of Colorado, you probably are already uttering things like "Yeah, but they'll fade," or "That pitching staff is weak" or "Huh. I was unaware Colorado had a baseball team."

Even after a World Series run in 2007 that rivaled any in MLB history, even after producing perennial All-Stars like Todd Helton, Matt Holliday and Brian Fuentes, even after playing the best baseball in baseball for the past two months, the Rockies still remain largely disregarded and disrespected by most baseball fans, analysts and national media outlets.

(Don't believe me? Just check out where the Rockies' highlights land on any given Baseball Tonight show. Or look up the 2007 MLB Awards voting).

Not that any of this really matters, of course. And not to say that any Rockies fans really want the national attention. We'll take a nice, quiet ride to the postseason without any glamour or glitz, thank you very much.

So I guess I'm just trying to give you a little heads-up. Take this as a friend's recommendation to pay attention to a team that is quietly having the best year in its franchise's 16-year history. A team that has a load of young stars (Street, Tulowitzki, Fowler, Gonzalez) and a helping of consistent, classy veterans (Helton, Cook, Hawpe) who long have labored under the lonely lights of a near-empty Coors Field.

But now the fans - and good baseball - are back at 20th and Blake. The Rockies may just turn out to be the story of the 2009 MLB season, whether or not anyone else takes notice.

Just keep your eyes open.