Sometimes a girls gotta do.....what the guys want to do. So, Baby Girl and I got ready for a day at the old ballpark.....the St. Louis Cardinals ballpark, that is....Busch Stadium.
Home of "Stan, The Man, Musial".....a hero to St. Louis Cardinal fans....and baseball lovers everywhere.
Here was our hero of the day...our tour guide, "Coach". A retired high school and collegiate baseball coach, who has lived and breathed St. Louis and it's famous ball team for DECADES! He and his wife even go down every March to Florida to watch Spring Workouts for the MLB teams. He was a great guide....so fun, so full of life, and so very informative who also shared some really great stories!!
The lush field.....major league baseball really knows how to make the grass look greener....for sure!!!
A fun side story on our tour.....in the "Cardinal Room", I believe. I don't really know for sure, we saw several insider rooms throughout the stadium, including the "on air live" press room and the owner's suite. But this room houses this funky wallpaper. Yes, that's wallpaper. And it was made from replicas of old baseball cards of St. Louis Cardinal players.
Well, almost all of the players featured were a Cardinal once....except for this guy. Satchell Paige. He never suited up in a uniform for the St. Louis Cardinals, but he did play for the St. Louis Browns which later became the ballclub we know today as the Baltimore Orioles. But, you ask, why is he so prominently displayed on the wallpaper? Good question, and here's the story behind the answer:
Bill DeWitt, Jr. is chairman and CEO of the Cardinals. He and a few of his friends bought out the franchise several years ago. When this new Busch Stadium was completed in 2006 he had this wallpaper idea.....but wanted to also include Satchell Paige. You see, this franchise owner had come full circle in his lifetime.....when he was only a young boy, he was a bat boy for the St. Louis Browns, and thus, a bat boy for Satchell Paige, so he wanted to make certain he was on the wall of fame....even though Paige never played for the Cardinals.
Here's another little side story from our tour, about a previous owner, you might recognize his name...this bust sits outside a stadium entrance in honor of him....August Anheuser Busch, Jr. He owned the Cardinal franchise from 1953 until his death in 1989.
And the story goes that when he purchased them, he wanted to change the name of the field to Budweiser Stadium....a clever marketing scheme to sell more of his beer....however, the baseball commissioner said no way. So, he said well, how about we name it "Busch Stadium"....and everyone agreed, assuming he merely wanted to honor the family name, or himself.
Still the businessman....he was procuring yet another clever marketing tactic.....because within a year of the stadium being renamed BUSCH.....the company Anheuser-Busch developed a new beer....known only as "Busch beer". And after being in 3rd place in beer sales at the time, behind Miller and Schlitz....they overtook both of those companies and became the number one brewery with the best selling beer (Budweiser) in the US. And as Paul Harvey always says....now you know the rest of the story.
See the Gateway Arch in the background? What a view from your stadium seat!
After touring the inside of the stadium, Champions Club, Cardinal Room, etc., we ventured out to the real seats....
And to our pleasant surprise, were even allowed to go right down on the field....the boys were so thrilled!!
Elder Son "takes a call from the bullpen"......
Seriously? The St. Louis Cardinals dugout? You've got to be kidding....sitting where many of the Cardinal baseball greats, like Albert Pujols, sit....so fun!
It was an amazing day....even for us girls! :) We all enjoyed the tour....Middle Boy thought it was the highlight of the trip....really cool for my boys.
1 comment:
At 34 years of marriage Big John had never said "take my picture" until the day we toured Yankee Stadium!
The guys love those ball parks and I enjoyed it too.
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