MLB Ball Park Review - Busch Stadium (St. Louis)

MAN, the Cubs sure are making it hard on me (and us) this week. WOW – a 3-game sweep at home while the Cards take 2-of-3 from the Reds and following a very disappointing road trip. YUCK!

What made it even harder was the fact we were at Busch watching the Cards take game 3 of their series with the woeful Reds. It will be difficult for me to stay objective when talking about Busch for two reasons…first, this is the home of the hated Cards and second, I am bitter and insulted that the Cardinals’ fans are considered the best in MLB. While the park itself was very nice including comfortable seats and very good sight lines, I found myself more focused on the fans. The scoreboard, while nowhere near as nice as Kauffman Stadium was still pretty nice with lots of info readily available. One of my favorite features was also the biggest bummer of the night too as they had a nice out-of-town scoreboard where I was able to keep up with the Phillies pounding of the Cubs tonight as well as three other games that were “highlighted” including current batter, outs, and base runners (not names, but bases occupied). The other 10 MLB games had scores and inning number including top or bottom indications. All the seats were red which gives me a nice intro to talking about these supposed best fans in MLB. First off, where the heck were they tonight? The attendance game showed over 40,000 but unless the new Busch holds 80,000, there’s no way it was more than 25,000 there tonight. Wasn’t this a division game in the middle of a close division race? Second, do “real” fans still do the wave? And during a big spot in the ball game? I know I certainly wouldn’t. Carpenter fell behind 3-0 with runners at the corners and two outs but the fans hardly noticed as they were much more concerned with building a bigger and bigger wave. Wow! Third, most of these supposed best fans left after the 7th inning which not-so-coincidentally is when beer sales were suspended per MLB rules. The game was 5-2 at the time so I was totally taken aback by this development. The last thing that really struck me as NOT “best fans in MLB” were two pretty obvious calls that were booed mightily by the crowd. The hometown scorer was totally a homer early in the game as Pujols reached on a wild throw by the Reds starting pitcher after taking a liner off his foot. The throw would have beat Pujols by a step and a half, but he was still given a hit on the play although he didn’t get the RBIs for the 2 runs that scored on the error. The next play was a long fly ball that was dropped by Reds CF Taveras that was ruled a double for Holliday. Yes, Taveras dove for the ball, but it was right in the middle of his glove and then he dropped it – should have been E-8!

The good news if you can even call it that, is that we have extended our hometown winning streak to 7 games and are now 8-4 overall. Of course, we weren’t even cheering for the Cards, but it still goes in the W column.

OK, so here is my updated ball park ranking to date:
1. Comerica Park (Detroit)
2. PNC Park (Pittsburgh)
3. Jacobs Field (Cleveland)
4. Citizens Bank Park (Philadelphia)
5. Kauffman Stadium (Kansas City, MO)
6. Fenway Park (Boston)
7. Great American Ballpark (Cincinnati)
8. Busch Stadium (St. Louis)
9. Yankee Stadium (NY Yankees – pre-2009)
10. Wrigley Field (Chicago)
11. Shea Stadium (NY Mets)

Next up is the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome (a.k.a. “hump dome” or “roller dome” – remember Ditka going in there with the Bears on roller skates to make his point?) in Minneapolis.