ST. LOUIS, MO – Busch Stadium
April 17, 2010 ~ Park #3
While sitting in Miller Park, I decided I wanted to see all 30 MLB ballparks in the nation. As soon as the 2010 season rolled around, I set off to make it happen. A friend of mine was attending Illinois State University at the time, so I drove down there, jumped in the car with him and his roommate, and he drove the remaining two and a half hours to St. Louis.
When you get near the ballpark in St. Louis, there are a number of parking towers directly across the street from the stadium, so finding a place to stash your car won’t be an issue. A word of warning though. Since these towers are right across 
the street, that means everyone will be using them. And since they’re parking towers, that means there is only one way out. It can be a mess trying to get out, so I hope you like the local post game radio show. If you get into the tower early enough, pick a spot on the lowest level you can and close to the spiral ramp that is the exit. The farther up you are and farther away from the ramp you are, the longer you’ll have to wait to get out. You’ll have to wait in line to get a spot in the exit line or to back your car out of the space you’ve parked in. Then you’ll wait to get onto the ramp. Remember, you’ve got multiple levels emptying into the same ramp, so it’s going to take time. You’ll crawl down the ramp as a new car gets on at each level. Once you’re out, you’ve got pedestrians walking all over and the general street traffic to fight as you make your way to the correct expressway. So I guess what I’m saying is, for the sake of a quicker exit, get to the game early and grab a good spot.
When I go to a new stadium, I like to get there as early as possible so I have time to walk around the outside, take a lap or two around the inside of the park and see all of the decks and angles before the game starts. Busch Stadium is actually the third park to carry the Busch name and host the Cardinals. The outside is entirely red brick and beautiful. There are gates on all sides of the park, but before you go in, be sure to check out the northwest corner by the team store. On this corner, the Cardinals display statues to all of their great players. This monument plaza has 10 small statues of 
the players in action poses with their last name engraved in the marble base and a plaque listing their distinctions. You can walk along one side of the building to see the statue erected to late broadcaster Jack Buck or walk along the other side to see the gigantic statue to Cardinal legend Stan Musial. Musial is represented among the 10 smaller statues on the corner, but gets another one just outside of Gate 3, larger than life and facing out to greet the fans who fill the park each and every game. If you want to get into Busch Stadium even earlier, you can enter at the northeast corner near center field. This is a fan plaza with live music and booths that fan can enjoy while they wait for the rest of the park to open.
No matter where you decide to enter, you’ll be on the main concourse. No ramps or escalators to climb, no special access tickets needed. The concourse is huge, but contains one of Busch’s few drawbacks: unless you’re in a few select places in the outfield, you can’t see the game if you’re not in your seat. From foul pole to foul pole, you’re under the grand stands and have to walk through an entry way to get back to the seating side and the game. Most of the outfield has additional seating sections that will block your view. You’re either watching the game or getting something to eat. You can’t do both. The concourse has a few historical artifacts 
like the AL and NL out of town scoreboards that hung in Busch Stadium II. The box scores of the final games of the 2005 season are immortalized on these boards. On the left field concourse, you’ll see some white boundary lines painted on the ground. These mark where Busch Stadium II used to extend to. If you’re looking for Cardinal gear or a souvenir, the main team store has a very impressive selection of items. There are other shops and carts sprinkled around the park if you are looking for even more options. To get to the upper decks, you need to walk up ramps. Once you get to the top level, the concourse it outside, complete with stores and concessions. When you’re ready to go to your seat, you either walk up a flight of stairs to get to the upper section or walk down the stairs to the lower half of the section. The splitting of the sections greatly benefits fans, as they don’t have to walk up too many flights of stairs coming or going to their seats and it breaks up the crowds. The Cardinals draw extremely well, so being able to manage a crowd is very important. Each section sign on the concourse is decorated with a golden cardinal and each row of seats has a painted cardinal logo on the end cap.
So now you’re in your seat and you can enjoy some of the best parts about this park. Number one: the view. Many parks look out on nothing or are built in the middle of the city and the buildings you do see are insignificant. Busch Stadium looks right out onto downtown St. Louis. Clearly visible is the court house and 
many of the taller buildings, but rising above it all is the arch. The iconic structure of the city is just above right center field and has been cut into the outfield grass, just to further articulate it’s presence. On the left field wall, the Cardinals display retired numbers along with a picture of the player it belongs to. When the White Sox did this, it was bigger and easier to see. The Cardinals have a lot of numbers, so it’s a bit squished, but I still like it. The main scoreboard is just right of center and is a beauty. It is mounted on a brick base that has concession stands built into it and a seating section just below that. Above the 
concession windows, the retired numbers are laid out on the brick facing. It’s just the number here, so you’ll have to look to the left field wall if you want to see who the numbers belong to. Above the number is your line score, then your video board. To the left is the lineup for each team and to the right is your basic information: who’s up to bat, their average, home runs, and RBIs and what they’ve done at the plate so far in the game. Also included is the count and how many outs there are in the inning. It’s everything you need in one place. There is another board to the right of that which is used for additional graphics, messages, and out of town scores. This board is topped with a flag for each World Series the Cardinals have won in their history. The flag itself just has the Cardinals script on it, but at the base of each flag is the year of the championship. There are 11 flags (10 when I first visited the park), so it’s an impressive display. On the tops of the home and away dugouts, the championships are again displayed, this time in the form of painted pennants. One dugout has the World Series flags and the other has the NL pennants. Funny story about the NL pennants. The only pennant years listed are those in which the Cardinals lost the World Series. The reason? The Cardinals have won 19 NL pennants and they wouldn’t all fit, so it’s easier to just list the 8 non championship seasons. #CardinalProblems.
So we’ve seen the park, taken our seats, been struck by the view and are ready for this 3:05 pm contest to begin. Since it’s early April, there is some hardware to hand out. We witnessed Yadier Molina and Chris Carpenter receive their gold gloves for the 2009 season, which was pretty cool. I’d
end up seeing another gold glove presentation in Cincinnati about 2 years later. The game saw an old nemesis of the White Sox, Johan Santana, now with the Mets, going up against rookie Jaime Garcia for the Cardinals. It was a pitcher’s duel to say the least. After 9 innings no one had scored. The extras started and didn’t stop. No one felt like scoring a run. At some point we discussed leaving, but the deeper into the extra innings we got, the more it felt like we had to stay. We’ve made it this far, might as well stick it out. We decided that if we were going to stay, we were going to snag better seats. So we walked down to the lower level and took some seats in the section behind home plate. Nobody cared. By the second 7th inning stretch of the night, problems started to arise. While it was warm when the sun was out, the night brought a April chill that no one was prepared for. The shops had been closed long ago, so the Cardinals missed out on a spike in sweatshirt and blanket sales. 
Since the shops were closed, that meant the food was closed too. It was well past dinner time and we were starting to get hungry. I found a bag half full of peanuts and started eating them. My friends blanched, but the way I saw it, they were still in shells and thus individually wrapped. Desperate times man. We were closing in on 8 pm. And the game? The game was pretty boring. 13.5 innings in the books and there were still no runs and only 11 hits. The Cardinals had stranded 13 runners. Things started to get nuts as the game carried on. Position players pitched and pitchers played the outfield. Albert Pujoles continued to be intentionally walked. Every time he came up, my friends and I would stand up and stick out our right hand, indicating the inevitable intentional walk. People in the section started doing it too. The Mets broke through with a run in the 19th inning and the Cardinals answered. The 20th innings started with the Mets scoring another run off of the Cardinal left fielder while left field was occupied by a Cardinals 
starting pitcher. Moving into the Cardinal half of the 20th, it was nearly 10:00 pm. At this point, after a boring game of nearly 7 hours and being at the park for close to 9 hours, we all just wanted it to end. In the back of my mind though, I kept thinking about our chance at history. The longest game in history was 26 innings, but the Cardinals went down quickly and it was over. The Mets won 2-1 in 20 innings, taking 6 hours and 53 minutes to do so. There were a total of only 24 hits in the game. There have been twenty 20 inning games in baseball history. Another nine games went 21 innings, nine 22 innings, two 23 innings, three 24 innings, two 25 innings, and one 26 inning game. We had never intended on being in St. Louis for that long. Thank goodness we only had to get back to ISU that night. I was able to sleep on their couch and head back home the next morning.
Busch Stadium is one of my favorite parks that I have seen. So many things are done right and the backdrop of downtown is spectacular. As of my last visit in 2013, the Cardinals were building a “fan center” across the street with what looked to be additional seating on top, a la the rooftops around Wrigley Field. It’s like I said in my introduction: ballparks are always evolving. I first came to Busch Stadium in 2010, went back in 2011 for the World Series, and was there again in 2013. Between 2010 and 2013, some things changed. Here are some examples:
If you want to see some parks but don’t want to take the time or spend the money to travel to all of them, be sure you put Busch Stadium on your list to see. You won’t be disappointed.
PARKING TIP: Park your car for free in the Casino Queen lot in East St. Louis. The lot is constantly patrolled by a security car and a guard tower watches over the entire place. The hotel there offers a free shuttle to the game that starts 90 minutes prior to first pitch and runs every 15 minutes. Alternatively, you can walk to the stadium via the Eads bridge and stop at the Arch on the way or you can take the train from East Riverfront Station to the Stadium stop.
More pictures of Busch Stadium
Gnome's Ballpark Tour 