Sweetie has a website in which he reviews every baseball stadium he's been to. If you're interested in it and haven't seen it before type his name into google and it will be the first web page that pops up. I've considered doing something similar, but have no desire to start my own web page about it, so I figured I'll just do it here.
Tuesday night, my 35th birthday, Sweetie and I caught a game at Busch Stadium in St. Louis. He has now been to every Major League Baseball stadium. I have been to four. (The Kingdome, Safeco Field, McAfee Field and Busch Stadium).
St. Louis is a baseball town. As soon as you arrive in town, the Cardinals are top of mind. You can just feel it in the air. People support the team, regardless of if they're doing well or not, and a lot of people can talk intelligently about baseball and the Cardinals and such topics. This is a strange experience for me, as it is very much not the case in Seattle. I like it, a lot.
As you arrive at Busch Stadium you feel it even more. The stadium is smack dab in downtown St. Louis. It seems as if they built the baseball stadium first (well, the old Busch Stadium), and then built the city around it. And, being St. Louis, I wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
We parked about 3 blocks away for $5. A STEAL compared to what we're used to paying. The place we usually park at Safeco is about 1/2 mile from the Stadium, and costs us $10-15/night, depending on how big of a night it is. This was a sell out game.
All of downtown St. Louis seems crawl with Cardinals fans. And it is very easy to pick out that these are Cardinals fans, and not just people who don't have to dress up for work, because every person is wearing Cardinal red. There was a gathering of people in a park about 2 blocks from the stadium. We didn't investigate, but I'm guessing it was some sort of tailgate party for a radio station. There was also a truck with a loudspeaker on it doing laps around the stadium promoting a local radio station.
The game was a sellout and the lines were long. It was the second game of the season, where the team would be receiving their Championship rings. They were also giving out a replica ring to all the fans that night.
The stadium itself didn't impress me much. It was perfectly utilitarian, but there wasn't really much SPECIAL about it. The first level concourses are completely enclosed, and you cannot see the field of play from them. It makes it feel like you are in a tunnel.
There is also very little artwork within the stadium, which is always something I appreciate. I've been spoiled by Safeco, but the only thing Busch Stadium seems to offer is small, golden cardinals perched on many signs throughout the joint. A nice touch, but really that's it. The other thing I really like to see is some sort of food offering that tells me where I am. In Seattle you have sushi and clam chowder. In Oakland there was a local restaurant that had been around forever that had a concession stand set up. St. Louis calls its concession stands "Gashouse Grill," but that's it. Unless you consider Budweiser the local flavor, which I don't since you can probably buy Bud in 75% of baseball stadiums in the world.
The one thing Busch Stadium really has going for it is the fans. People clap and cheer and just generally respond to the game. They don't need sound effects to tell them what to do or when to do it. That's refreshing. Although even in this regard there were a couple of disappointments. As soon as the Cardinals got their third out in the bottom of the first inning just about every fan got up and left the seating bowl, presumably to get a beer or go to the bathroom or something, but it felt to me like people were saying, "Eh, who cares about this other team - we just want to watch the Cards." Also, it started as a sell-out crowd, but by the end of the night maybe 25% of the seats were filled. Granted, it was cold out that night, it was a weeknight, and the Cardinals were getting pummeled by the Mets, but if people really live and breathe the Cardinals you'd think they'd want to stay to the end of the game.
There were a couple of nice nods to old Busch Stadium. I think. There was nothing to explicitly tell us what they were, but Sweetie and I were using our detective skills. Outside the park there is a green stripe in the pavement, with a yellow foul line and a marking of "408." My first guess was that it denoted the first base foul line outside the park, but things didn't line up correctly. But, based on where the old Busch Stadium used to be, we think it's where the outfield wall was once upon a time. Also, inside the concourse (although they are awkwardly placed, and difficult to see if you aren't looking for them) are three scoreboards - American League, National League and Cardinals. Originally I thought they gave the current score of games, but it had the Mariners game in progress, and had several match-ups wrong, including St. Louis. After developing several theories we surmised that those were the scoreboards as they stood when the final out at old Busch Stadium was played. West coast games would have still been in progress, and St. Louis played the Reds that series, so it all works out. Nice touches, but it would have been nice to be told that's what they really were.
The other really nice thing was a tribute to Jack Buck. Outside the stadium is a statue of Jack at the mic, with several photos on the wall behind him. Nice. Even nicer is the audio system that is continuously playing calls made by Jack Buck over the years. A really touching tribute.
One thing that I can say without a doubt - St. Louis loves it some Stan Musial. The fact that a statue of him was erected in front of a local sports bar opened up the news the night we got into town. There are multiple statues of him around the Stadium. And when he was given his Championship Ring (not sure if this is standard practice, but St. Louis gives rings to all living Cardinal Hall of Famers) the Stadium exploded with cheers. But really, can you blame them?
All in all, a fine place to see a game, but nothing much to offer above functionality.
Hope you guys are having an excellent trip! Sorry it's been so cold in the MW - it was 80 degrees last week!!
Posted by: Shannin | 06 April 2007 at 06:45 AM