In recent weeks, the pendulum of public sympathy — not to be mistaken for public support — swung in the direction of Rockies manager Jim Tracy, who resigned Sunday. The fair-minded concluded that while Tracy wasn’t among the elite managers who can prod a team to overachievement, he wasn’t the problem, either.

Tracy was competent. Those around him weren’t. And they’re staying.

Barring a stunning offer that makes the current ownership reconsider its resolve to hang on to the franchise as a family legacy, this will remain the Monforts’ team. Their loyalty to their management team, including longtime general manager Dan O’Dowd, has evolved from admirable and even refreshing to bewildering and aggravating.

Here’s the best move Dick and Charlie Monfort could make this week, in the wake of Tracy’s resignation: Hold a news conference. Face the cameras, the tape recorders and, indirectly, the public. (Yes, that means removing the gag from the blunt-spoken Charlie Monfort.) And announce:

We’re sorry. This just isn’t working. Jim Tracy is just the start. We’re cleaning house.

O’Dowd, who more than used up his little remaining credibility by coming up with the four-man rotation, 75-pitch limit fiasco, should be gone too. So should Bill Geivett, the — ahem — senior vice president of major-league operations since August. He has been with the organization since 2000 and worked his way up. But that’s not saying much.

Nobody in the baseball operation should be immune to the broom’s swath following a scathing evaluation. New management should have the freedom to do a complete makeover.

The two months of having O’Dowd and Geivett operate as a two-headed monster, with Geivett as a pseudo-manager with an office in the clubhouse, has made the Rockies even more of a laughingstock. It’s not innovation; it’s lunacy. No manager capable of making a significant difference is going to take the job as Tracy’s successor under these circumstances. Think Terry Francona, who signed on with the Indians on Saturday, would have accepted being Geivett’s flunky?

In years past, I was a conditional O’Dowd defender in the sense that he obviously was a good soldier, operating under constraints placed on him by ownership and even overseeing the amazing 2007 run to the World Series.

But there comes a point where it’s just time to try something — and someone — else.

I know: A far-reaching housecleaning is about as realistic a possibility as an ownership change. It would be expensive, complicated and messy. It isn’t happening. I despise the scapegoating phenomenon in sports. But this has become a truly exceptional situation. Whether they have done this intentionally, or by being inept, the Monforts have come off as arrogant and insulting to a fan base that — at least when judged by the box-office take and the beer stand receipts — has remained amazingly loyal.

They’re making money. I know a lot of Coloradans believe that’s not only the Monforts’ major concern, it’s their only concern. But even if that’s accepted, unfairly or fairly, this is coming down to diminishing returns. The reputation, the venom, the disdain … it’s going to start costing the franchise. Call me naive, but I think that despite the upcoming bonanza teams will receive in new television contracts, this is crossing the threshold.

It’s time to run the Rockies like a major-league operation. Bring in men who not only will accept, but demand, the mandate to stop whining about baseball at high altitude. Bring in men who believe winning baseball is not only possible, but sustainable, through shrewd and adaptive management (not desperate gambits) at the mile-high altitude … and will stick to that belief, come hell or high ERAs. Bring in men who know what they’re doing.

Clean house.

Terry Frei: 303-954-1895, tfrei@denverpost.com or twitter.com/terryfreidenver