Remembering Busch

The last regular season game of the year was played in Busch Stadium today. Once the post season ends, an army of wrecking balls are gonna beat that forty year old stadium to dust. And, seeing as how the St. Louis Post Dispatch and ESPN.Com have refused to publish my most memorable moments from Busch Stadium, I’m kicking it out for you here on The Nate Way. Watch out, guys. This one’s kind of long.

Some of you who are reading this can remember having some serious fun at the old ball park. Remember with me now.

In what could very easily have been the best Saturday of my life, brother Tom and I watched Rick Ankiel get his first professional win (say what you will about that flake, but his curve ball was super scary, especially back then, when he wasn’t legal to procure alcohol but was perfectly okay to strike out National League hitters). In that game, six different Cardinals hit home runs and McGwire belted one of his two home runs off the freaking scoreboard, located approximately seventeen thousand feet from home plate. We won 9 to 6. And that would have been great in and of itself, but here’s the thing:

It was also Willie McGee day. They were honoring him, putting him in the Cardinal hall of fame, thanking him for all his great years. The ceremony started at 11 AM; alcohol service began at 11 AM. By the first pitch, Tom and I were half cocked, choking back tears and telling Willie stories, all the classics: the post-season home runs, the grand slam against the Cubs in his first game, how he stuck with number 51 through his whole career even though it was just supposed to be a temporary uniform for him because he came up while the Birds were on the road and they only had two jerseys that would fit him, his goofy swing, how he won the National League batting title while in the American League, and how, through all those years, he never did or said one negative thing. Brother Jay and I used to choke back tears as children after Cardinal losses; now brother Tom and I were choking back tears at this game before the first pitch.

(A woman I dated once asked me when I last cried. I told her, “Willie McGee day at Busch Stadium.” After further explanation she concluded the conversation with these harsh words: “That’s the dumbest reason I’ve ever heard of to cry.” And this chick cried during “Patch Adams.”)

At the beginning of last season, Mom bought me a miniature of Busch Stadium for no apparent occasion. When I first got it, I sat and stared at it for hours… and I swear I saw myself grow up. In one little model, I was a nine year old boy skateboarding his way through the World Series monuments behind Stan the Man’s statue, barely able to read the legends of victory etched in stone on those victory markers, and not even considering, not even for a moment, pulling a skate trick off any one of those beautiful statues. The Gateway Arch never got that kind of respect.

I went back further, too. At one point, I was a stupid toddler, trying to come to terms with this goofy game and wondering why Bruce Sutter always seemed to be getting booed, despite his success.

“They’re saying Bruce,” Dad reassured me.
“And how come Porter doesn’t wear a helmet like all the other catchers, Dad?”
“Because he doesn’t have to?”
“Why?”
“Because he’s been in the league a long time. He was grandfathered in.”
“He’s too young to be a Grandpa.”
“Watch the game, Son.”

Then, much later in life, there was the crazy, long-haired high school version of me, who, along with three friends, vowed to go to every Cardinal day baseball game that occurred during school. We came up one day short of our goal, but only because one Cardinals/Cubs game sold out.

And then, as is now, there’s the college kid/young adult, who returns every year for his niece’s birthday. I’m dreading the day she figures out that I time my arrivals so I may see her and watch a live Cardinal’s game. Hopefully, when she does figure it out, she’ll like the Cardinals enough to come with me.

And the classic Cardinal moments of my life (the moments that stay with you like they’re part of your skin): Ozzie Smith back flipping across ugly astroturf; “Lawless is flawless” while the heat was on; the Royals shooting down I-70; my “The Mets are Pond Scum” T-shirt; Willie McGee coming through like it was the basis of his job description; Ozzie Smith winning a post season game against the Dodgers with his first ever left-handed homerun (punctuated by Hall of Fame announcer Jack Buck screaming, “Go crazy folks! Go crazy!” as an entire city looked on in enthralled disbelief); John Tudor winning seven million games in a row; my friend Scott breaking two knuckles hitting his own wall because of Denkinger’s blown call; Ray Lankford bowling Darren Daulton; McGwire’s seventy dongs… and many more—none of them better than Porter embracing Sutter after clinching our last World Series win in 1982.

And then there was the last game I attended, with my mother and sister (whom I hadn’t been to a game with since I was ten), when we watched the Cardinals come back from down four to nothing by scoring five runs in the ninth inning. As I was sitting there, watching that inning unfold, I knew we were gonna win. I could feel it. All 47,000 of us could feel it. Sometimes, you just know. And I just knew that the Cardinals weren’t gonna make my last game in Busch a loser. That game was like a personal thank you from the baseball gods. It was as if they were saying to me, “Thanks for always staying until the end of every game. Thanks for flying a thousand miles to attend this game. Thanks for rooting for your team even when they sucked. Thanks for spending all of that money and time on your team in this stadium. And most importantly, thanks for getting to know this stadium like a man knows his home. We can’t get you a free beer, so here’s a come from behind victory on a sweaty August night, young man. Thanks for being a fan.”

And so they will tear Busch down. The new stadium, which will carry the old name, will be prettier and will have all the unnecessary amenities. It will surely be a sight to behold and will probably be worthy of the great fans of St. Louis, and I’m sure I’ll love it.

But it will take me a while to learn what numbered section equates with what kind of view. It will take me a while to learn where the dogs and beers are a little bit cheaper than in the rest of the park, and I’m sure I’ll never quite get the hang of looking out at St. Louis and not seeing that old Cookie Cutter Stadium, which my brain equates with home cooking and apple pie.

Thanks for the memories, Busch. You get one more post season before you’re mercy killed. And I hope the Cardinals, the baseball gods and the opposing team all make sure that the last game played there is a winner.

Because I hate choking back tears.