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Baseball at Busch and beer at $7.25 a bottle
30 Sep, 2008 By: Ron Hall Athletic Turf News<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"
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St. Louis Cardinal fans are among the most knowledgeable and supportive fans in baseball. They prove that every year with their feet and their wallets. (Keep reading because you'll see what I mean by that later.)
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This year, in spite of the team's disappointing fourth place finish in the National League Central Division, they proved their loyalty once again. On Sunday, Sept. 28, when the final out of the season was made in St. Louis, 3,432,917 fans had made the 2008 season the third largest draw in team history.
I was one of that 3.4 million thanks to the generosity of equipment manufacturer Redexim Charterhouse, which treated me and about 40 of its employees and guests to a game at Busch Stadium. We witnessed the fifth to last game of the season, a 4-2 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
The new stadium is often referred to as Busch III because it's the third stadium in St. Louis so named, the first (originally called Sportsman's Park) acquired the name in 1953 and the second, Busch Memorial Stadium, served the team from 1966 until 2006. The team played its first game at today's $360-million Busch Stadium on April 10, 2006.
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As meaningless in the standings as the final games were to the Cardinals, the 40,000 or so fans cheered the win we witnessed like it was the seventh game of the World Series. Only they didn't try to rush the field or climb all over the brass statue of Stan Musial, just outside the main gate, like they did when the Cardinals defeated the Detroit Tigers for the 2006 World Championship, the team's 10th world title.
None of us came to St. Louis specifically to see the Cardinals or Busch Stadium; that was a treat. We were there to broaden our knowledge of the management of turfgrass and synthetic turf sports fields. And, also, of course, to learn about and operate Redexim's extensive line of field maintenance equipment. Thanks to perfect September weather -- blue skies, 80 F., and a nice breeze -- we got lots of hands-on time with the equipment, which we will report about as we sort out our pages of notes. That was almost as much fun as the game. Almost.
Redexim rented a "party room" at Busch Stadium for the group of us. It was on the third level and in the right field corner. The room consisted of a small bar (Bud, Bud Light and soft drinks), a counter with food and snacks, perhaps a half dozen small high tables surrounded by four stools and a glass front onto the field. About five rows of seats provided outside seating for those who preferred fresh air with their baseball.
The turfgrass playing field at the stadium looked great from our high perch. It looked just as good when I departed the party room to prowl the stadium and get a closer look. Not knowing when (or if) I would ever get back to see another game, I wanted to see every corner of the stadium.
The field and the experience at the stadium were certainly different and more pleasant than the only other time I witnessed the Cardinals in action in St. Louis. That was on a hot summer night in 1993, just weeks after the devastating Mississippi River flood.
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My father and I had bought tickets several rows above the third base dugout but the heat coming off the synthetic turf playing surface literally drove us to the cheap seats top of the stadium where we found a breeze and watched the game in relative comfort. At the time we wondered how the players could stand playing on that particular playing surface, especially on a hot, sunny, summer day.
For the most part I found the new Busch Stadium nice, especially the life-sized statues of great Cardinal players at the entrances. Dizzy Dean. Enos Slaughter. Ozzie Smith. Musial, of course. They and several others stand in various poses just outside the ticket takers.
But, I guess what really caught my attention were the prices inside Busch. Just inside the gate a vendor was selling Cardinal "game-worn jerseys" at 50% off -- or for just $100 each. At another gift shop "game-used" baseballs were going for $15, as I recall. That struck me as a bit much, as did almost all the other memorabilia and trinkets typically sold at Major League parks. Even so, people were opening their wallets, pulling out their credit cards and loading up.
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I can't say that I'm immune to the lure of baseball junk, as I have my share of baseball hats, bobbleheads and signed player photographs (mostly Tigers and Indians), but I have yet to shell out my first $7.25 for 12-ounce, baseball park Bud, the going price at Busch.
Hey, we all gotta draw the line somewhere, right?
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