On Saturday I hit the road west on I-64 to St. Louis, MO. I got there mid-morning with plenty of time to kill before the 3:05 CDT first pitch. I decided to go and see the Gateway Arch, which was pretty cool and ended up taking all of the time before I went to the stadium. There’s a museum and a lot of 19th-century history and what not. Really cool. I would have liked to have seen more of Albert Pujols, but he left the game with an injury in the second inning. It was still fun. The Cubs beat the Cardinals 8-5 but it was a good time, and Busch Stadium in an excellent venue for baseball. Here are some pics from the day in the Gateway to the West.
This is the “Old Courthouse,” where the historical Dred Scott case was heard in the 1840s, an event that had a great contribution to the downward spiral to the Civil War.
The history of the city of St. Louis is underrated. The Courthouse includes a pretty cool museum type deal with stuff on slavery, the transition of the city from the steamboat center of the universe to the freight/railroad center of the universe. And best of all, it’s free.
And this, of course, is the Gateway Arch, a product of the Great Depression that finally came to fruition in the 1960s. It is an icon of the midwest, and a fitting symbol of the city’s history.
For ten dollars you can ride a tram to the top of it and look out the windows — on one side downtown St. Louis, and the other the Mississippi River and the state of Illinois.
Not too bad of a wait, either.
This would be Busch Stadium, the third incarnation of Busch Stadium, in fact. And this view is from the Gateway Arch.
The first Busch Stadium was a renovation of Sportsman’s Park back in the ’50s. Then, in the era of round, multi-purpose stadiums, the second Busch Stadium was born, playing host to the Cardinals for some forty years. In the era of new ballparks, the second Busch held on as a classy park for years, especially in the last decade when natural grass was put in and renovations were made during the Big Mac era.
This is the first year of the third Busch Stadium, and it is a great ballpark, right up there with Turner Field (maybe better).
This would be Albert Pujols and his first and only at bat of the game. Pujols is the best hitter in baseball today, and was on pace to best Barry Bonds’ record* of 73 home runs in a season. I was really looking forward to seeing him play.
I’ll take what I can get. He struck out in his only at bat and was taken out after the second inning with a strained oblique.
You gotta love baseball. The experience was great, the atmosphere was excellent, and it was clear to me that the fans in St. Louis know and love baseball, as opposed to other spoiled cities (cough, cough Atlanta).