Remembering Busch Stadium II

You can check out Lost Ball Parks on Instagram or go to their website. This post on their Instagram website brought back a lot of memories for me. I saw many games at Busch Stadium II.  We arrived in St Louis in the late '80s.  Dad retired from the Air Force and we have lived here ever since.  

I have great memories in that stadium.  The first game I ever went to the Cardinals were playing the Padres.  We sat in centerfield in the top level, and all the players look like ants Ha Ha! People forget that the cookie cutter stadiums of the time were very spread out.  They were symmetrical, but there was a lot of foul territory as well.  If you were a fan, you were not as close to the players compared to the stadiums of today.

somebody in the Instagram post talked about how hot it would get at Busch Stadium II.  They are correct... The sun would bear down on the astroturf.  The bleachers out in center field would burn your legs! We sat many times in the center field bleachers which were truly bleachers at the time, not seats.  It was very cheap to sit there. I think I remember the tickets only costing $4 to $6 a piece.  Can you imagine those prices today?

That being said, you had the whole cast of characters that would sit in the bleachers that were regulars.  The whole thing brings back fond memories.  The smells of popcorn, soda, beer, cigarette smoke... And let me tell you everybody was sweating. Ha! Ha! The sun would beat down on everybody and there was no shade.  We were packed in like sardines and you could feel the body heat from people right next to you.  So how is this a fond memory? Ha! Ha! Well, you had to be there to understand.

Busch Stadium II was also a very big ballpark.  The outfield was 414 to straight away center.  The park was designed to support the "Whitey Ball" teams in the '80s.  You can look up the teams of Whitey Herzog and his strategies, but understand his strategies revolved heavily around speed.  Many of the players on his teams could have been world-class track athletes.  Their success absolutely came down to great speed and really good pitching.  They could score at anytime because of the speed they had on the base paths.  If you look at players like Willie McGee, Ozzie Smith, Vince Coleman, and Terry Pendleton... All of them had very good speed.

This was really fun to write about and brought back some great memories.  Do you have any great memories from the ballpark that you grew up in?  Please leave a comment.