Paul Jacobs, who helped save the Colorado Rockies organization, has passed away at the age of 78, according to the team.

Jacobs was a Denver-based attorney who not only helped establish the franchise, he also helped save them and bring together the second ownership group as well. He could, and should be remembered as one of the team’s founding fathers.

In August of 1990, then-Governor Roy Romer put Jacobs in charge of the Colorado Baseball Partnership, who was to find a group who could own the team. Jacobs found Mickey Monus and John Antonucci, among others, and in mid-September of 1990, the MLB heard the pitches from Buffalo, Denver, Orlando, South Florida, Tampa-St. Petersburg and Washington D.C.

Then, in early 1991, the team created a season ticket drive, picked 20th and Blake Streets as the new site of the stadium, and announced that ballpark would be called Coors Field. In late March, the NL Expansion Committee visited Denver, and on June 10 of that year, then-Commissioner Fay Vincent announced Denver and South Florida would be the expansion sites.

On July 5, 1991, Colorado was awarded the 27th franchise in the MLB. Just three days short of celebrating that 27th anniversary, Jacobs passed away.

After finding the first ownership group — in which Monus and Antonucci had to sell their shares after a fraud/embezzlement scandal — Jacobs also helped find the second ownership group, which included Charlie Monfort, Jerry McMorris and Oren Benton. Jacobs not only found that second ownership group, he convinced Monus to transfer $10 million in Rockies stocks to Jacobs, who would transfer the stock to Monfort, McMorris and Benton six weeks later.

Those three Coloradans took over ownership for the non-Coloradans, and a few weeks later, ground was broken on Coors Field.

“To me, in my mind, the critical element was separating the general partnership from Monus and Antonucci,’’ Charlie Monfort said in 2016 per 9News. “To me, that was the most important aspect to keeping the franchise. The fans of Colorado were why we got the franchise. Paul did what he had to do to save it.”

Without Jacobs finding Monfort, McMorris and Benton, it looked as though the Rockies would never play a single game in Colorado, and instead, be moved to Tampa, Florida.

The late Jacobs saved the Rockies and he’s in-part to thank for the team thousands of fans cheer on today.