Guess what is the only team in Major League Baseball that never has won a division title and/or a World Series?

Guess which Denver franchise in the five major sports leagues never has won a division title or a championship?

You guessed correctly. Free Tacos.

The Monforts must feel mortified that the Rockies are Rock Bottom locally and nationally.

No.

After all, Forbes values the Rox at $1.48 billion. The Monfort family has come a long way from farming feedlots.

Mogul magnate Monfort has been an investor-owner in an Italian food chain, a Tattered Cover bookstore, a Palm Springs hotel, Brett Favre’s (closed) steakhouse in Green Bay, a prime square block of downtown Denver that features a hotel, restaurants, sports bars, other businesses and condos (where he lives in a penthouse). He is the chairman of the University of Northern Colorado board of trustees, chairman of the board of University of Colorado Health and chairman of the Colorado Economic Development Economic Development, and he serves on the Denver Zoo board.

Dick, as he is affectionately known by everybody in Colorado, is the co-majority owner (with brother Charlie, who seldom is seen or heard), chairman, chief executive officer and principal authority on all decisions, deals and party decks with the Rockies.

The 69-year-old Monfort is a busy man. But not so busy he can’t sign Kris Bryant to a seven-year, guaranteed $182 million contract and be in complete control of a team that finished with a franchise-foulest 59-103 record the past season.

Since Dick took over from older brother Charlie in 2011 the Rox have won under 69 games five times and have lost more than 86 games in 10 seasons of his 13 at the helm. The Rockies were 26-34 in the abbreviated pandemic season and made the playoffs twice as a wild card and lost four of five games. In the past two seasons the Rockies have earned last place in the National League West.

This year the Hard-Knox Rox were the most pathetic team in the NL despite Monfort claiming before the season the team would play .500 ball. He suffers from foot-in-mouth disease. Dick hasn’t spoken out loud since season’s end a month ago.

Consider these baseball records from 2021-2023:

Orioles 52-110, 83-79, 101-61.

Twins 73-89, 78-84, 87-75.

Rangers 60-102, 68-94, 90-72.

Marlins 67-95, 69-73, 84-78.

Diamondbacks 52-110, 74-88, 84-78.

Rockies 74-87, 68-94, 59-103.

Guess what five of those teams have in common? All increased their victories and reached the postseason in ’23 – the Rangers, the Marlins and the Diamondbacks as wild cards and the Orioles and the Twins as division winners. Texas and Arizona got to the World Series.

In the same three-season span the Rockies finished a combined total of 125.5 games out of first.

“Wait ‘til next year’’ always has been a popular refrain in baseball. But, in the Rockies’ realm, the pitch-and-hit-and-catch phrase is, “Just wait ‘til two or three or four years from now.” It has been suggested in media quarters and dimes the Rockies will follow the trend of the Rangers and the Diamondbacks and, with their young talented players, could be a contender in 2026.

A former Rox general manager once told me at spring training that the Rockies could hope to be in contention once every seven seasons. In the movie “On The Waterfront,” Marlon Brando, as the character Terry, said he “coulda been a contender’’ and blamed his troubles on brother Charlie.

Perhaps Dick can blame brother Charlie, but Charlie actually got the Rockies to the World Series when he was the franchise’s CEO.

After the Rockies traded Nolan Arenado (and agreed to give the Cardinals $50 million) in February 2021, during a Rockies’ press conference I asked Monfort if he considered firing general manager Jeff Bridich and himself.

“No, I haven’t thought about firing Jeff. I have thought about firing myself,” he responded.

He fired Bridich soon after.

Despite the hue, and the cry, the Monforts never will sell the franchise.

But it’s time for Dick Monfort to fire himself and hire a president of baseball operations from the outside and let him or her lead the franchise. The candidates should be Kim Ng, Chaim Bloom, Mike Haze and Peter Bendix.

Dick can just be chairman of the bored.