The wrecking ball hit Busch Stadium in St. Louis this week. It was watched by many. It’s a somber time for Cardinals fans and the 4 decades of children who grew up in this stadium. I can’t help wondering why a perfectly good stadium is being dismantled and then rebuilt. Surely there are schools or libraries or musuems that could use the investment.
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November 11th, 2005 at 6:18 am
Argghhhh…. as an ex-st.louisan who went to this stadium as a kid, this is difficult to hear. I’m assuming this plan has been in the works for a while….
November 11th, 2005 at 12:05 pm
Yeah, the owners came up with the idea during the McGwire days (back when I still lived in StL, and read the post-dispatch semi-regularly). It’s taken them this long to fight through the opposition that they got from pretty much everyone. No more games at Busch, no more broadcasts on KMOX radio (on a good day, I could still get KMOX even down here in the South). Going to a game at new busch is going to be very disturbing, I think.
November 11th, 2005 at 1:44 pm
Good riddence to bad rubbish. It was a piece of plastic garbage out of the cookie-cutter mold. Baseball shopuld be played on grass at baseball parks, not stadiums. Long live Wrigley Field!
November 11th, 2005 at 2:22 pm
And long live Neifi! May he stay in the Cubs lineup for all time!
November 11th, 2005 at 3:22 pm
[...] See, it’s us! Sean and Clifford are in the back. Risa’s in the front. And I’m the goofy red-head driving the spaceship. You can tell it’s me cuz (a) nobody else has such weird hair and (b) I’ve steered our spaceship to St. Louis. We’ve just passed The Arch and I’m turning the ship around for one last look at Busch Stadium before it’s completely demolished. Mark is absent from the photo as, due to his own admission, he doesn’t like pictures of himself. Besides, we could only fit 4 in the spaceship and he drew the short straw. The editorial review of the production is quick to point out that the characters are instantly likeable with a passion for music and adventure. The journey proves complex, but the ever-cheerful group uses their musical knowledge, careful listening skills, and ingenuity to ensure success. [...]
November 11th, 2005 at 10:46 pm
What J-Dog said. I went to Busch in 1993 and it was horrible. A round seating area = bad for baseball. My friend and I were in the upper deck and it felt like we were in Illinois, the field was so far away.
As for the “Why don’t they spend the money elsewhere” aspect :
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From Ballparks.com
Cost: $344.8 million
Public financing: $45 million long-term loan from St. Louis County.
Private financing: $90.1 million from the Cardinals, $9.2 million in interest earned on the construction fund, and $200.5 million in bonds to be paid over a 22-year period ($15.9 million per year) by the team. Anheuser-Busch agreed to a 20 year naming rights deal (through the 2025 season) which will help offset construction costs.
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So, unless my reading comprehsion has completely left me, the public in St. Louis won’t pay anything after the loan/bonds are paid off–yes, that $20 million or so won’t be there yearly, but still. The new stadium next door looks like it’s going to be amazing so it’s a win-win in my book. I was hoping that the Opera Theatre of St. Louis was doing something interesting in 2006 so I could justify a trip to St. Louis for a ballgame/opera weekend, but alas.
November 12th, 2005 at 1:35 am
Henry,
Check the schedule of the St. Louis Symphony. Several of my former classmates play in it, so I am completely biased, but it’s probably worth at least checking out.
PS: I loved that round cookie-cutter stadium! Been going to games there for 37 years (gosh, that seems impossible given I’m only 29!) and never had a bad seat. Even the straight-A student freebie tickets were fun!
November 12th, 2005 at 6:57 am
Gosh, I know nothing about the merits or deficits of Busch Stadium, but this seemed like a good time to point out that “perfectly good” is one of those expressions that means pretty much the opposite of its surface meaning: When someone says to his or her partner “Why do you want to throw out my perfectly good shirt?” one suspects that that shirt is in something less than grade-A condition…
So to my ear, JoAnne’s defense of the stadium is less than ringing.