Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Old Busch Stadium

Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals
June 24, 2004

Cardinals 4, Cubs 0

W: Chris Carpenter
L: Matt Clement
Attendance: 48,042
Time of Game: 2 hours, 14 minutes

Stadium Facts

Location: St. Louis, MO
First Game: May 12, 1966
Capacity: 50,345
Type: Open
Surface: Grass

My 2004 trip back to the Midwest consisted of three stops for baseball games. I had previously attended games in all three cities (St. Louis, Kansas City and Cincinnati). In fact, the only ballpark I saw for the first time on this trip was Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati. I had been to a couple games at the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis and one at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City. The trip was also supposed to include a stop at Wrigley Field, but my friend who was supposed to go to that game with me was unable to make it, and there was no way in hell I was going into enemy territory by myself. So the Wrigley visit was postponed for a few years.

While the trip lacked great ballparks that I was dying to see, I made up for it by picking three interesting matchups. I'll call this the Rivalry Trip. I saw one of the biggest rivalries in baseball with the Cubs visiting the Cardinals, followed by two intrastate, interleague games: St. Louis at Kansas City and Cleveland at Cincinnati.

I left the DC area late on a Wednesday in June and headed west through Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. I drove well into the night before crashing at a hotel in the middle of nowhere, Kentucky. The following morning, I completed the trip to St. Louis. Well over 800 miles, the trip from DC to St. Louis was the longest solo drive I had ever completed (surpassed the following year). I was fortunate enough to meet up with a bunch of friends in St. Louis for the game though.

We spent the afternoon doing touristy stuff, including a trip up the Gateway Arch and a tour of the Budweiser brewery. Those are almost certainly the two most common destinations for tourists in St. Louis. Personally, I had been to the city several times before, so the only new experience was the Budweiser tour. St. Louis is your typical Midwestern city. It is a fun place to visit with plenty to do. The downtown area is a short walk from the Gateway Arch and Mississippi River. Old Busch Stadium, which has since been demolished, was situated at the south end of downtown St. Louis.

Busch Stadium was one of several round, multi-purpose, cookie cutter stadiums built in the 60s and 70s that all essentially looked the same. I've been to a few of these stadiums (RFK in Washington, Veterans Stadium in Philadelphia and Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati) and would give a slight edge to Busch over the others, partly because of the switch from astroturf to natural grass which occurred in the 90s. From the outside, Busch sort of blended in with the nearby parking garages. With no true exterior wall, you could see right into the park with the seemingly endless pedestrian ramps that look just like different levels of a parking garage. The roof featured the signature arches of St. Louis all the way around the stadium.

The perfectly round design didn't leave much room for unique aspects to the park. The upper deck surrounded the entire park, cutting off most air circulation and also removing any potential view of the St. Louis skyline. The enclosed feel of the park also made for some very hot, sticky summer nights. Fortunately, it wasn't excessively hot for this game.

Old Busch Stadium was a pretty good pitcher's park, with the symmetric playing field having deeper than average outfield wall dimensions. Mark McGwire did manage to turn it into a hitter's park for a few years though. We had seats in the upper deck down the left field line, which weren't exactly the best seats in the house, but at least we were in the house for this big game.

Cubs/Cardinals games are always big, no matter how good or bad the teams are, particularly because the road team always brings a huge crowd to the opponent's park. I've seen this matchup in both parks and it would be hard to say which park had more opposing fans. The games in 2004 were especially big because the Cubs were the defending division champions, but the Cardinals had one of the best teams in baseball. The Cards entered this game in first place with a two game lead over the Cubs. Props to the Cardinals on sticking it to the Cubs fans who decided to buy a program for this series. The cover feature celebrated the 40th anniversary of the Lou Brock for Ernie Broglio trade, in which the Cards acquired the future Hall of Famer, Brock, from the Cubs in quite possibly the most lopsided trade in baseball history.

The Cardinals had their ace, Chris Carpenter, on the mound opposed by Matt Clement. Both pitchers had it going in this one, but Carpenter got some help from Sammy Sosa, of all people. Sosa led off the second with a single and advanced to second on another single with no outs. After a strike out, Corey Patterson lined one to deep center field. Jim Edmonds successfully deked Sosa into thinking he was going to make the catch as the ball bounced off the wall. Because he had been tagging up, Sosa was thrown out at the plate, unable to score from second on a hit off the wall. Two innings later, Sosa was again unable to score from second on a base hit, this time electing to stop at third base. The Cubs recorded three singles in the second and fourth innings, but did not score in either frame.

The game remained scoreless until the bottom of the fourth when Clement was let down by his defense. The Cardinals loaded the bases with one out, but a Hector Luna groundball to short should have been an inning ending double play. Instead, Rey Ordonez booted it, a run scored, and the inning continued. After a sacrifice fly made it 2-0, Chris Carpenter helped his own cause with a RBI single. Tony Womack added another single to stretch the Cardinals lead to 4-0. Three of the runs in the inning were unearned, but none of them would have scored if the double play had been turned. Neither team got much started offensively after the fourth. Carpenter pitched eight scoreless innings, striking out nine. Jason Isringhausen completed the shutout in the ninth for a 4-0 Cardinals victory.

The Cardinals went on to win a MLB best 105 games in 2004. They also won the National League pennant, but were swept in the World Series by the Red Sox. The Cubs finished the season in third place.

I had a great time in St. Louis, especially with the Cardinals win. Prior to the Nationals coming to DC in 2005, the Cardinals were my favorite National League team. Seeing them beat the Cubs was especially fun. The new stadium, which would be built immediately to the south, was little more than a hole in the ground at this point. It opened for the 2006 season. I returned to St. Louis for a game in the new park in 2008, which I will write about later.

Photo Album

From St. Louis

From St. Louis

From St. Louis

From St. Louis

From St. Louis

From St. Louis

From St. Louis


Next stadium: Kauffman Stadium, Kansas City

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