GastropodTravels: Busch Stadium V.3 ... Third Time's a Charm???

Cardinals vs. Padres, Saturday, August 15, 2009

We didn't even expect to attend another baseball game this year after being fortunate enough to be invited to join some friends in a private box in July. But sometimes fortune smiles twice and while participating in a trivia night for a local school we put in a bid for some baseball tickets. Miracle of miracles I won the silent auction and got four tickets that retailed for $265 for a mere Benjamin. The school gets extra money from us and we get to attend another baseball game - HUZZAH!!!

Even better ... these seats were in something called the Redbird Club. It's a private entrance area on the third level of Busch Stadium that has its own concession stands, bars, and bathrooms housed in an enclosed, air conditioned pavilion with tons of flat panel television sets and comfy seating. It's conceivable that someone could have a ticket to the baseball game in the Redbird Club and never actually leave the place to take his or her seat in the stadium proper.

What, I ask, is the fun in that???

Jay and I considered inviting several different someones to join us but in the end decided that we would rather have the evening to ourselves and would just sell the other two tickets. There are always people skulking around downtown St. Louis looking to score cheap baseball tickets. As long as you don't "scalp" your tickets it's perfectly legal to sell them on the streets - we sold ours to the first taker who turned around and then sold them to someone else! HAHA!!!

I may be in the minority among Stinktown baseball fans, but I don't really like this newest incarnation of the ballpark, or Busch Stadium V.3. It's visually clunky and the concourses are airless and sticky ... like being stuck inside the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory right before the fire broke out. There is nothing unique about this stadium that hasn't been seen in any team's "retro" stadium rebuild since the Atlanta Braves started the trend in 1996. At least they had the Olympic Games as an excuse for a complete and total lack of imagination ... all the Cardinal ownership had was the joy of not spending very much of their own money to build "baseball heaven."

Yeah, you read that right. The public address announcer actually welcomes fans to Baseball Heaven before the start of each game.

Hubris much?

I love the Redbirds as much as any other dork who cut his or her teeth on a corkball, but I don't drink the kool-aid, ya know what I mean?

Baseball Heaven.

The last time I checked that was in an Iowa cornfield where the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson was wearing shoes and Kevin Costner was pretending to be a farmer.

But I digress. We had a good time at the game, especially because the right team won. The Redbird Club had stands selling the usual ballpark fare: dogs, brats, pretzels, nachos; but they also had burgers, pizza, chicken nuggets, pretzel dogs, Asian stir fry, monster cupcakes, and gelato. The beer offerings were swilly and we both got a big laugh out of the fact that a bottle of water at Busch Stadium costs five dollars while a bottle of water at WDW only costs two. Who would have thought Disney would offer something less expensive than Stinktown???

There are no food porn pictures to share with you ... mainly because other than Jay's box o' stir fry we didn't order anything worth photographing. And while I would have loved to take pictures of the various stands and their product offerings there were just too many people milling cluelessly around. And speaking of people in general ... what gives with the texting while at a baseball game? There must have been at least ten people in our section who spent the entire night texting, putting their phones away, being beeped or otherwise alerted that a message of the highest importance had been received, pulling their phones out, and then texting some more ... except for those times when they were standing up in the middle of play to take a self portrait with the baseball diamond in the background.

WTF???

Not interested in the game? Fine, but for gawd's sake let the rest of us enjoy it in relative peace. And while I'm thinking about it, you gormless, double-jointed thumb-monkeys, could you please refrain from taking pictures with your phone and otherwise blocking the field of play until the mid-inning break?

I didn't come down to your seat, thrust my ample behind into your face, and expel fart gas at you ... the least you could do is not thrust your effing blackberry or iphone into my field of vision ten times in a row in one half-inning while the game is being played.

There's a reason I'm referred to as the Cranky Crohn. ;-)

And now, please enjoy some pictures from our evening.

Tickets