Despite his light blue shirt and red cap, Nolan Arenado wore a purple heart on his sleeve.

“I didn’t know this press conference was going to happen until this morning,” the St. Louis Cardinals third baseman said Tuesday in the visitors’ clubhouse at Coors Field, an hour after conspicuously attending the press conference across the hall while watching his former Rockies teammate Charlie Blackmon say goodbye to a game they both love.

“I got a couple of texts and I’m glad all the guys let me know. But obviously I’m glad to be a part of it. I’m just glad to be here and see it. I had a feeling. I wanted to ask (Blackmon) what your plan was, but I was also scared to ask him. Like, ‘Hey, what are you going to do?’ Because then he might say, ‘I’m still playing. Don’t ask me that.’ So I was a little nervous. I’m not going to lie.

“I had to ask him. He told me and I’m happy for him. I was happy to hear him talk and see his whole family. It was great to see his parents. … I remember when we made the playoffs in 2017, we all went out and his mom and dad were there. So it was pretty cool to see them again. I feel like I haven’t seen them in a long time, so it was great.”

Great. Bittersweet. The Yankees, Dodgers and Cardinals are becoming dynasties. The closest Rockies hardliners have come to that was probably 2017 and 2018, those back-to-back wild-card teams with Blackmon, who announced his retirement late Monday, as the leadoff hitter and Arenado, the Mike Schmidt of his generation, bringing him home. A core that took time to grow and then fell apart in the blink of an eye.

“We all played at a pretty high level, and it was special,” Arenado reflected before his Cardinals faced the Rockies to open Colorado’s final home game of another losing season. “And I always say when DJ (LeMahieu) left, it kind of dampened us a little bit. That was our group, but … going back to Charlie, if it wasn’t for Charlie, we probably wouldn’t have made those postseasons, I mean, without him. He was just so crucial and great for us and set the tone.”

Arenado watched his old friend say goodbye with Rockies players in the background, leaning against a wall, standing next to a bank of television cameras. His Cards were 79-77 on Tuesday afternoon. A year ago they won 71 games. The grass is not always greener.

“He’s kind of the yin to my yang, you know what I mean?” Arenado recalled. “So, you know, I love him.”

They grew up together in the Rockies organization. They both got married. They had children. They went their separate ways. But they became good friends, as opposites often do. The bearded man even took Arenado fly fishing one January day in 2018.

“We had a cool time,” the St. Louis infielder said. “It was just cool being out in the wild like that, but Colorado being what it was, it was a 24-degree day and when we got done it was 0 degrees. Yeah, it was crazy, but it was fun, man. We had a great time in his old Jeep.”

For a guy from Georgia, Blackmon fit the Front Range like eggs in a breakfast burrito. History will call Blackmon the Coors Field “miracle,” but at the peak of his powers, Chuck was Nazty everywhere. From 2016-2019, that “miracle” hit .273 on the road with 55 home runs in 1,269 at-bats.

The Rockies’ even more dysfunctional cousins ​​in the American League, the White Sox, needed a right fielder — left-handed, good wheels, all-fields pop — who fit Nazty’s profile for most of the last decade. He stuck with it. He stuck with it.

“This is where I want to play. This is all I know,” Blackmon said. “I think going somewhere else and hoping for the best, I didn’t see any benefit in leaving (this team). … It means a lot more to me to have been successful here and made the playoffs and have guys that I watched grow up in this locker room that are successful.”

“I mean, at the end of the day, that’s a lot more rewarding for me than jumping around. I don’t want to disparage anyone who’s decided to leave, but that’s one of the few decisions you have in a game, where you want to play. And I made that decision to stay here with the Colorado Rockies.”

Arenado has chosen a different path.