Before I get too in depth with St. Louis, it should be known that I went to the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and saw Kellie Pickler, Jeff Bates and Craig Morgan. All were phenomenal. While it can be said that music is my therapy (a whole other blog for another time) I can’t get over how much I enjoy live music. Certain songs and lyrics really evoke emotions out of me and being in the Grand Ole Opry was amazing. I think I had goosebumps the whole time.
Of course, there was also the fact that I got my picture taken with the King (kinda)
And the place where we had breakfast the next morning, which had delicious-flavored biscuits. So much so that I bought the cookbook. I now know how to make grits if I ever need to.
Okay, now onto St. Louis. It was a 7:05 start on Wednesday night and the Cards were playing the Pirates. We walked over from the hotel and this is what I saw first:
Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals
And of course, we all know I’m a sucker for historical baseball memorabilia and the like so I naturally had to have my picture taken with the statues of the Hall of Famers.
I like Rogers Hornsby, for reasons other than he is one of the greatest right-handed hitters to have played the game, because this was his take on the game:
“Any ballplayer that don’t sign autographs for little kids ain’t an American. He’s a communist.”
“I don’t want to play golf. When I hit a ball, I want someone else to go chase it.”
"People ask me what I do in winter when there's no baseball. I'll tell you what I do. I stare out the window and wait for spring." - Rogers Hornsby
Once inside, the view from our seats was pretty dang spectacular. Yep, I said dang. Check out this view towards left-center field. Postcard-like, amirite?
And did I mention that it rained in St. Louis while at the game? It was more like a heavy mist, but everyone scattered nonetheless. They were clearly not gamers. But that bit of rain also explains the minor drowned-rat look I have going for me:
I would give St. Louis a low 8 overall. The atmosphere was pretty good (especially for a Wednesday night game) and they definitely got bonus points for shutting down the concession stands during the playing of the National Anthem, which I thought was cool. Of course, I already had my food so… But the field was beautiful, it had a great view of the Arch, the food was decent (although I didn’t try the bratzel, which was the “can’t miss” on the NYT list. Something about a brat wrapped in pretzel dough seemed a bit heavy for me. Like an oversized pig-in-a-blanket.) And the deciding factor in the point scale was whether or not I would want to play ball there if I were a major league player and the answer was a definitive yes.
