Charlie Blackmon’s postgame dining habits shocked and awed Nolan Arenado.

As a 22-year-old rookie, Arenado came walking into the training room when he spotted Blackmon, neck-deep in the cold tub, chowing down on his postgame meal.

“Guys would be like, ‘That’s weird,’” Arenado recalled last week. “But that’s Charlie. He was a trip, man.”

Arenado, the Cardinals’ star third baseman, was Blackmon’s Rockies teammate from 2013 to 2020. Over those eight seasons, Blackmon left a lasting impression.

“His work ethic was the best I’ve ever seen,” said Arenado, a likely Hall of Famer.

Rockies fans know all about Blackmon’s drive, strict routine, and Charlie Hustle style. But the man behind the beard is infinitely more interesting than the four-time All-Star and two-time Silver Slugger.

“When he’s at the ballpark, it’s all baseball,” said Ashley, Blackmon’s wife of nearly seven years. “He’s ‘Chuck Nazty.’ He’s ‘Locker Room Charlie.’ But I don’t know who ‘Locker Room Charlie’ is. I just know Charlie-Charlie, and he’s a wonderful man.”Blackmon, 38, plays the final game of his iconic 14-year major league career Sunday when the Rockies host the Dodgers in their 2024 season finale.

Rockies’ faithful took “Chuck Nazty” into their hearts, and it will be tough to say goodbye. They watched his Grizzly Adams beard grow, and grow, and grow some more. They sang along with his walk-up song, “Your Love,” by The Outfield.

But Ashley fell in love, not with the Rockies’ icon, but with the kind and affectionate man who cuddles their two children, daughter Josie, 3, and son Wyatt, who will soon turn 2.

“Charlie’s a multifaceted person,” Ashley said. “He presents himself as this stoic and serious person, but the exterior can sometimes lead people to believe he’s unapproachable or that he’s reserved. Beneath that tough facade is this warm, gentle, fun-loving guy with this love-of-life spirit.

“He often goes out of his way to make others feel valued and appreciated and supported. He has a deep love for the Lord and his family. Oh, and fly-fishing, too.

“His seriousness at the ballpark stems from his deep sense of commitment and responsibility to the game and his career.”

And what a career.

Blackmon entered his final weekend with 1,802 hits, 2,953 total bases, 334 doubles and 1,621 games played, ranking second in Rockies history in all of those categories to Hall of Famer Todd Helton.

Blackmon made almost $140 million playing baseball, but money didn’t change the man.

“He’s just a normal guy, a normal dude who likes being outside,” said Ivan Orsic, who became Blackmon’s Colorado fly-fishing buddy. “He was already an All-Star when we met in 2016, but he made it super easy to become friends. He’s just Charlie, a guy who happens to be really good at baseball.”

Beginning in 2015, Blackmon decided he wanted to explore the wilds of Colorado and learn how to fly-fish. Since Blackmon never does anything halfway, he reached out to Orsic and Colorado fishing guru Tanner Smith to learn the art of angling on the state’s rivers and streams. The trio became fast friends on their first trip to the Arkansas River near Salida.

Orsic is a filmmaker and photographer with a focus on fly-fishing. Sadly, Smith died on Aug. 3 after losing his battle with gastric cancer.

“Charlie did some guided trips before he met us, but he wanted to really learn how to fly-fish, so he reached out to Tanner, who was kind of the godfather of Colorado fly-fishing,” Orsic said. “I respect Charlie for a lot of things, but the thing I really respect is that he doesn’t want anything handed to him.

“He’s not shy about going all in and figuring it out for himself. He was not interested in getting the red carpet rolled out for him and people tying his bugs for him.”

Blackmon isn’t just into baseball and fishing, he’s also a movie buff with an exacting memory.

“Charlie’s a big vault of movie quotes, but I’m horrible at remembering quotes,” Orsic said. “On our fishing trip to Belize, Chuck made sure to burn me a couple of times exchanging movie quotes. Our guide just stood there completely clueless.”

Blackmon jokes about his hobbies, especially fishing: “I’ve tried to make them way harder than they should be.”

He’s a man who sweats the details.

Mike “Tiny” Pontarelli, Colorado’s longtime home clubhouse manager, discovered that in 2011 during Blackmon’s first big-league spring training.

The subject was pants.

“‘Chuck’ wanted to know the exact measurements for his uniform,” Pontarelli said. “He wanted to know the details about the inseam and the exact length. He was just so into the dimensions of his custom-tailored pants. It was pretty wild. He wanted to make sure they were perfect.”

Blackmon’s bats had to be perfect, too.

He swung Old Hickory bats — 34 inches, 31 1/2 ounces — his entire career. He visited the factory in Goodlettsville, Tenn., to see how his bats were made.

“Charlie has weighed every single bat for as long as I’ve known him,” Pontarelli said. “Not only that, he’d measure the taper of his bat handles to make sure they were perfect, too.

“A lot of guys are just happy to get a dozen bats and just go out and use them. Not Charlie. He had to double-check to make sure they were perfect. So, in a batch of a dozen bats, he might discard three or four of them.”

Blackmon is a man who knows what he likes. Arenado prefers the word “stubborn.”

“That’s what made him great: He stuck to his ways,” Arenado said. “If you tried to get him out of his ways, it was like, ‘Don’t talk to me, don’t come near me.’”

When the two were teammates, Blackmon and Arenado often went out to dinner together. Aside from baseball, they didn’t have much in common: Arenado, a Southern Californian who loves to play golf and go to the beach, and Blackmon, an outdoorsy Georgian who loves to fish.

So they would go out to dinner and inevitably end up talking baseball. And arguing, especially if Arenado tried to give Blackmon advice on how to escape a slump.

“I could say, ‘Hey, Charlie, try a lighter bat’ and he’d be like, ‘Hey, don’t tell me what to do,’” Arenado recalled with a laugh.

During his early days with the Rockies, Blackmon continued driving the beat-up 2004 Jeep Grand Cherokee Laredo he’d had since high school. He put close to 200,000 miles on his beloved Jeep, pushing the vehicle to its limit.

Blackmon’s stubbornness caught up to him on a brisk Atlanta morning in January 2016. On his way to a morning workout, he ran out of gas on a busy freeway. Second baseman DJ LeMahieu, Blackmon’s close friend and former teammate and roommate, had to come to the rescue.

“My gas light was on in my Jeep when I left to go work out that morning,” Blackmon recalled. “I knew it was almost empty, but I like to push it. It was crazy cold that day. It wasn’t safe. So I called up DJ, ’cause I knew he was probably behind me. He was.”

LeMahieu showed up with a gas can. As Blackmon poured gas into his Jeep, LeMahieu sat in the warmth of his car, snapped a picture with his iPhone, then posted the photo on Twitter.

“It was too good to pass up,” recalled LeMahieu, who’s now chasing a World Series ring with the Yankees. “It was the perfect picture at the perfect time. I thought, ‘I have to share this with everybody.’”

But Blackmon, armed with a wickedly dry sense of humor, knew how to needle his teammates — especially the high-strung Arenado.

“I know how to press Nolan’s buttons and I know what bugs him, so I’ll say something to get under his skin,” Blackmon told The Denver Post in 2018. “I will have my fun with him, and then leave him alone and let him stew over it for the rest of the day.

“But other times, Nolan just needs a hug. I mean, sometimes he can’t walk down the hallway without stopping three times to take a dry swing with his bat.”

Arenado admitted that “Brother Charlie” got to him.

“This one time, I wasn’t hitting,” Arenado recalled. “He came up to me and said, ‘Hey, Nolan, you know what your problem is? You know why you’re not hitting right now?’ I said, ‘Why, Chuck?’ So he said, ‘Nolan, you’re not ready to hear it yet.’”

As Arenado relayed the tale, he became more agitated: “I was like, ‘Really dude?! You’re going to stand there and say that and then not tell me why I’m struggling?!’ I was so mad. I was like, ‘Dude I’m never talking to you again.’ Then I talked to him the very next day. But he never told me. He just likes to irritate me. He’s such a jerk. We argue all of the time. He’s like one of my brothers.”

Make no mistake: Blackmon is beloved by his teammates.

“He’s a good beer drinker, man,” third baseman Ryan McMahon said. “You get a couple of beers in him, and you get him on a roll and telling stories, man, you can listen to his stories all day.

“He’d tell us stories about his trips to Germany and Amsterdam. He’d tell us stories about some of the veteran Rockies from back in the day. He’s meant so much to me and to this franchise. Chuck’s the best.”

At Blackmon’s retirement news conference, Rockies players, staff and front-office personnel packed the interview room.

“Nobody had to be told to go. They all wanted to be there for Charlie,” manager Bud Black said.

During his news conference, Blackmon was measured and composed, just as he’s always been on the baseball field. But he acknowledged that a future without the game is daunting.

“It was a very difficult (decision), and I don’t think I’ve really grasped the gravity of it just yet,” he said. “I think this last week will reveal a lot about how I feel about stepping away from the game.

“It’s pretty much all I’ve known. I feel like I’ve never really worked a day in my life. … So it’s going to be very different.”

Ashley said she’ll be a “puddle of tears” on Sunday afternoon, but she’s confident her husband is ready for his next chapter.

“He’s always kept baseball separate from his family life,” she said. “He doesn’t bring the game home with him. We have been together for 10 years now. He has never initiated any baseball talk unless I initiated it and asked him how he was doing.

“He could 0 for 0 or stink it up for a couple of games or a week but he always showed up for me and the kids. I think that’s really important. We can’t wait to have Charlie-Charlie around more.”

But Ashley does have a concern. She has never seen her husband without his famous beard and he’s hinted that he might shave it after he retires. She’s fine with that, but she’ll urge him to proceed with caution.

“I’ve told him, ‘Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be ready, too. But just don’t do it too abruptly. You just need to shave it off in small amounts or you’ll scare off our kids.”