Mets vs. Cardinals, 7:15pm start
I have to start this blog post with a disclaimer. I am from St. Louis and the Cardinals are my team, so I'm going to be a little biased. Plus, my parents gave us their super awesome (and expensive) Redbird Club tickets, so we had great seats, which helped the overall experience. The Cards were also fighting for a spot in the play-offs, so no one was phoning anything in. I'll try to be as objective about this as possible, but we really had a great time.
The park itself is actually a lot cooler and prettier than my high-school-self wanted to believe when they tore down the old Busch Stadium. It's got the same brick and steel coloring that Camden Yards had, and it also has a really nice view of the downtown landscape (something the Nats Stadium sorely lacked). After seeing the Nats and Orioles parks, I realized that the concourse area at Busch is actually really small compared to some of the other new parks. And while they now have all the gigantic jumbotrons playing their flashy games (the ball was under hat 3, by the way), they still tried to keep some of the old charm. We couldn't get a good picture, but the old hand scoreboard is still in place, with the last regular season game it ever saw (a 2005 win against the Reds).
The game itself was awesome! Dan even let me score most of it in this super awesome scorebook that I got him for our anniversary specifically for these trips. I got a little worried though, since the first two innings were fabulous for the Cards, but when I took over scoring in the third, they got ice cold. Luckily, right after I complained about not being able to color in a diamond, Freese popped a long one for a seventh inning home run!
I can't really say too much about the fans- I mean, they were awesome, don't get me wrong. But it's not like there was a huge Mets presence at the game for any kind of bantering. And since we were in the club seats, everyone around us was in Cards' gear. The great part, though, was that even then, everyone was really into the game and we didn't see anyone get overly drunk (the fact that beer is $8 might have something to do with that). Everyone was just really respectful of the game and the people around them (Dan might beg to differ, since he had a horny teenage couple to his left. Ces't la vie- this is my blog and I didn't have any problems).
If you ever get a chance to enjoy the Redbird club, I highly recommend it. The food is good (though stadium priced), the seats are padded and it's right behind home plate. Plus, a few foul balls were hit into our section. Which reminds me, don't forget:
We also got to see fireworks since the Cards won. This is not a picture of fireworks. This is a picture of the cool new multi-light water fountain thing that they put in in an area that used to be an overgrown volley ball court between the stadium and our car. :) Fireworks are hard to capture when you've got no notice and your camera is safely packed away in its bag for the trip home.
Finally, you're wondering about our pennant. We must have stopped at every kiosk in the stadium, but no luck. It sounds like the sold out of Busch pennants early in the season and never got new ones. If we wanted a Pujols, Berkman, or other star player, they had those coming out the rafters, but nothing with the stadium and nothing with just the team on it. So what did we do? Give up in defeat? Do you know us? We got this:
Yes, that is a 300 piece pennant-shaped puzzle. Yes, I'm going to glue it all together and hang it on the wall. Yes, the cats are going to have oh-so-much-fun driving me crazy by trying to steal pieces. It will be fun. I will love it! And should anything else be the case, I will come on here and update. For now, I'm freaking stoked about this thing.
One last note- even though this stadium is gorgeous with lots to do around town, plenty of cheap parking, great food, even better fans, and a fabulous team, I'm still keeping Camden as my favorite ballpark. If I hadn't already known what Busch looked like, my opinion might have changed, but I did and there was something just so grandiose about Camden that Busch just didn't have. Sorry folks, it's actually number three on my list, behind Camden Yard and National's Stadium, but well above Wrigley Field (and Sox Stadium, which we've been to, just haven't blogged about).
I have to start this blog post with a disclaimer. I am from St. Louis and the Cardinals are my team, so I'm going to be a little biased. Plus, my parents gave us their super awesome (and expensive) Redbird Club tickets, so we had great seats, which helped the overall experience. The Cards were also fighting for a spot in the play-offs, so no one was phoning anything in. I'll try to be as objective about this as possible, but we really had a great time.
The park itself is actually a lot cooler and prettier than my high-school-self wanted to believe when they tore down the old Busch Stadium. It's got the same brick and steel coloring that Camden Yards had, and it also has a really nice view of the downtown landscape (something the Nats Stadium sorely lacked). After seeing the Nats and Orioles parks, I realized that the concourse area at Busch is actually really small compared to some of the other new parks. And while they now have all the gigantic jumbotrons playing their flashy games (the ball was under hat 3, by the way), they still tried to keep some of the old charm. We couldn't get a good picture, but the old hand scoreboard is still in place, with the last regular season game it ever saw (a 2005 win against the Reds).
 |
| Note the arch on the field- so cool. |
The game itself was awesome! Dan even let me score most of it in this super awesome scorebook that I got him for our anniversary specifically for these trips. I got a little worried though, since the first two innings were fabulous for the Cards, but when I took over scoring in the third, they got ice cold. Luckily, right after I complained about not being able to color in a diamond, Freese popped a long one for a seventh inning home run!
I can't really say too much about the fans- I mean, they were awesome, don't get me wrong. But it's not like there was a huge Mets presence at the game for any kind of bantering. And since we were in the club seats, everyone around us was in Cards' gear. The great part, though, was that even then, everyone was really into the game and we didn't see anyone get overly drunk (the fact that beer is $8 might have something to do with that). Everyone was just really respectful of the game and the people around them (Dan might beg to differ, since he had a horny teenage couple to his left. Ces't la vie- this is my blog and I didn't have any problems).
If you ever get a chance to enjoy the Redbird club, I highly recommend it. The food is good (though stadium priced), the seats are padded and it's right behind home plate. Plus, a few foul balls were hit into our section. Which reminds me, don't forget:
We also got to see fireworks since the Cards won. This is not a picture of fireworks. This is a picture of the cool new multi-light water fountain thing that they put in in an area that used to be an overgrown volley ball court between the stadium and our car. :) Fireworks are hard to capture when you've got no notice and your camera is safely packed away in its bag for the trip home.
Finally, you're wondering about our pennant. We must have stopped at every kiosk in the stadium, but no luck. It sounds like the sold out of Busch pennants early in the season and never got new ones. If we wanted a Pujols, Berkman, or other star player, they had those coming out the rafters, but nothing with the stadium and nothing with just the team on it. So what did we do? Give up in defeat? Do you know us? We got this:
Yes, that is a 300 piece pennant-shaped puzzle. Yes, I'm going to glue it all together and hang it on the wall. Yes, the cats are going to have oh-so-much-fun driving me crazy by trying to steal pieces. It will be fun. I will love it! And should anything else be the case, I will come on here and update. For now, I'm freaking stoked about this thing.
One last note- even though this stadium is gorgeous with lots to do around town, plenty of cheap parking, great food, even better fans, and a fabulous team, I'm still keeping Camden as my favorite ballpark. If I hadn't already known what Busch looked like, my opinion might have changed, but I did and there was something just so grandiose about Camden that Busch just didn't have. Sorry folks, it's actually number three on my list, behind Camden Yard and National's Stadium, but well above Wrigley Field (and Sox Stadium, which we've been to, just haven't blogged about).
