Saturday, June 4, 2016

Special Report from St. Louis

I was in St. Louis last week, for a cousin's wedding over the Memorial Day weekend, and when I was booking plane tickets, I thought I might just look at the Cardinals' schedule and see if they were in town, and sure enough, they were!  And playing the Giants no less!  I have seen the Cardinals in 2 other stadia in St. Louis (I am old enough to remember seeing Stan Musial rove left field in Sportsman's Park), but had not seen a game in the new Busch stadium.  And here it is from the south:
The Cardinals have won 11 World Series Championships, more than any other team except the Yankees.  But 11 is do-able for the Giants, don't you think?  Friday, June 3 was overcast and there were slight sprinkles throughout the day, but in St. Louis in the summertime, that is not a bad thing.  It was a perfect 75 degrees at game time, and did not cool off more than a few degrees by midnight.   The ballpark is right downtown as was the big, round, 1966 Busch Memorial Stadium.  In fact, they had to tear down that stadium to finish this one for the 2006 season.  The out of town scoreboard from the last game at Busch Memorial is on display in the concourse.  Here we are with Stan the Man Musial and my cousin Kelly:
They have a bunch of little statues, too.  As you may be able to tell from my posts, I love pitching.  And here I am with Bob Gibson:
And here is Akemi with George Sisler, a St. Louis guy with the hits record that was broken by Ichiro Suzuki:
In the background, you can see Ball Park Village.  They have a bunch of bars, which all seem to serve Anheuser-Busch products, and restaurants.  It is a hoppin' place.  For fun, you can stand on the balcony overlooking the central room and pick out the Giants' fans.
Our seats turned out to be pretty good, and they didn't seem as expensive as at the Phone.  Maybe resellers just aren't as greedy as in San Francisco.
The stadium is bigger than ours, and much more spacious (as are almost all stadiums).  It seats 46,000, and there were a good number of empty seats.  I did not sense the energy that is in ATT at every game.  The Cardinals have had a rough start this year, the cubs are 9.5 games up on them (in 2nd place) this morning and my cousins characterize this year's club as "beating the bad teams and losing to the good teams."  Still, you look at their line-up and see a bunch of good, powerful hitters.  Their pitching has not been as good as they would like.  Adam Wainwright is their #1, and he has struggled, although he looked pretty good last night.  Wainwright struck out 6 Giants, mostly fooled by his big loopy curve.  Cardinals fans are NOT fond of Johnny Cueto.  Here's why.  Still, the booing was pretty unimpressive as he was introduced, a bit better when he took his first at-bat.  And here is his first pitch:
Great seats, and the Redbird Club, right behind us has the best food in the stadium (which is not saying much compared to the Phone's offerings.  The seats are cushiony, and we were right under the announcers!  I could lean forward and see Flem's head!   Here is a picture of our view at twilight, as I sat there perfectly comfortable in my 2012 Championship T-shirt:
And finally, the best picture of all, just after the final out:




14 comments:

Zo said...

Plus, they had a race between a cow, pig, soybean and corn cob for the Missouri Farmers. Sorry, no pictures, but I did get a business card from Simon Soybean.

Zo said...

Is it even possible to throw in a towel when you are as bad as the Padres?
http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2016/06/padres-likely-to-trade-james-shields-within-24-hours.html

M.C. O'Connor said...

Awesome post, man! Glad you both had a great trip and got to see the Giants win.

M.C. O'Connor said...

Second consecutive shitty start from Samardzija. Good thing you guys went yesterday.

campanari said...

Stan Musial statue, hey? I vividly remember Musial from the Polo Grounds, but I wouldn't recognize him from this statue: he batted all coiled, bat up and right elbow up in front of his face as though he were sighting the pitcher over the crook of it. If I maintained my scholarly integrity, I would go to Google Images and check my memory against the posture of the Musial statue you photographed, but I don't want to risk adding either further disillusionment or further self-congratulatory disdain to the register of my old age.

JC Parsons said...

Excellent post! I love that we have these extra road trip additions WITH PHOTOS! Not many other Giants blogs offer that extra dose of love! Way to go!!! I think I will look at the schedule and see if there might be a road trip for me. I've never been to the new SD ballpark, COL, ARI, the new SEA, shit maybe the Angels now that they have you know who! Anybody up for a road trip!?! Hell, it could be a minor league theme too. Think about it!

JC Parsons said...

The Shark was massively disappointing. The homer on a 3-0 pitch (hey, I thought that was OUR trick) seemed to truly rattle him. His focus/intensity seemed to evaporate. Damn, what a game of inches. The homer hit the foul pole and a double before that hit the base... so close.

When do we get to see Williamson? Parker is a bit hard to take. Big swing with holes, poor (but improving) strike zone discipline, mediocre defense, but all of that is balanced out by an undeniable yet streaky power. He may make it but it will take time and many adjustments. We no longer have the luxury of a developing prospect type. We have a big time OFFENSE, DEFENSE and LEADERSHIP loss with Pence going down. I know there is no one person that can make all that up, but the new OF better at least hold their own in two of those categories. RIGHT NOW. I say it is time to give Big Mac a shot. He LOOKS like a hella player to me.

Ron said...

Awesome Vlog & eyewitness account regarding game we won! Let's get this thing righted tonight!

So, how do we feel about having Carl Crawford fill in for awhile for us (at LA's expense, of course) as our injury situation clears itself? Just got DFA'd. We could end up w/ a decent veteran bench piece, after Pence & Pagan return.

M.C. O'Connor said...

I thought Kyle Blanks would be our emergency OF, but he's not on the AAA roster, I think he's injured. OF help is surprisingly thin. Is a piece off the scrap heap better than Williamson/Parker? I don't know, man. I have no beef with Carl Crawford but at this point he's just as much "replacement player" as our youngsters. Justin Maxwell gave us about a month's worth of solid ball last year, we need two months. I'm willing to take a chance on the rooks. If the situation is bleak at the ASB then I think the team might go shopping, but I think odds are bullpen help would be higher on the list.

Zo said...

@campari - the picture doesn't show it, but the Stan Musial statue is highly stylized. It is not like any other baseball statue I have seen.

Brother Bob said...

I'm psyched about the Sisler statue. He's a family icon, since my grandfather roomed with him at Michigan circa 1914. I have proof. Anyway, Sisler played for The Browns, who were never winners. His whole career was in the shadow of Rogers Hornsby, star of the Cardinals. Sisler had 2 seasons with BA above .400. He could steal 50 bases. And if the Golden Glove existed then he would have won them all.
Oh and JC, Barb says hell yeah.

Brother Bob said...

PS Sisler was a first base man.

M.C. O'Connor said...

The Browns are now the Orioles. "Gorgeous George's" coach at Michigan was Branch Rickey.

Zo said...

@Bob - holy crap, that's the wrong picture! Sorry about that. This is the statue but I don't know how to post my picture w/ Akemi: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/e5/2d/56/e52d56412feb5fb98620a2395d32d0a2.jpg.