Hope Mshray enjoyed his Cards game!
We shore did. What more could you ask for?
We went a bit early and walked around the big pep rally, with booths from about 6 local radio stations, all broadcasting live, a live band, and the big fountain had red colored water going. Of course everyone was wearing red themselves.
Walked around the backside of Busch to see the new stadium construction, which is very interesting. The south half of the new stadium is already built, complete with seats. It's like someone chopped it in half. After they demo the old Busch stadium they will build the north half of the stadium in the area where the first base & right field sections are of the old stadium. There is a yellow pole sticking up out of the right filed bleachers where the new stadium's left field foul pole will be. When it's finished batters will be looking over the center field fence directly at The Arch.
In Busch the only difference between the first row of the 200 level and the last row of the 100 (field level) is a metal bar going across. There are 4 more rows and then a walkway. So we were in row 6 of the 200 level, one row removed from the walkway, just to the outfield side of the home dugout. Awesome seats! (which for over $1000 for 4 tix they damn well should have been!)
The game had everything a Cards fan could want except that Edmonds couldn't quite make the spectacluar first inning grab of Berkman's double. But for the rest of the game Berkman, Ensberg & Lane (3-4-5 hitters) combined to ground out 8 times. When Sanders came up in the bottom of the first with Eckstein aboard, the whole place started chanting "REG-GIE!! REG-GIE!!" and he responded with a 445 ft homer to left center. We also saw a squeeze play and a pair of 2 out RBI singles. Baseball at its best. The temperature was 70 at game time and by the 9th inning had dropped all the way down to 68. I kept looking and it was only on the way out that I finally saw someone who wasn't wearing red. Oh, and I was on the Jumbotron between innings twice! I had a hand puppet of the Fredbird mascot, maybe it was on the telecast.
Of course what happened last night has dampened my enthusiasm. But they've beaten the Astros with less in the past.
Almost forgot, one radio guy said on the air "...tonight's game against the Astros, or as I like to call them, the Asses. Hey if they can shorten it to the 'Stros, I can shorten it to the Asses."
Gotta love it.
