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ALL STAR GAME: 1966 ARTIFICIAL TURF: 1970 - 1995
BEEN THERE: I stopped briefly in St. Louis and peered inside the (empty) ticket office in August 2002. (See photo below.)
Even before the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series, it was decided that the old "Busch Stadium" (as Sportsman's Park had been called since Anheuser-Busch acquired the team in 1953) needed to be replaced. In 1966 the Cardinals moved into the NEW Busch Stadium, which was a vital part of the urban renewal of downtown St. Louis, shortly after the Gateway Arch was completed. The background scenery of that Arch plus the arch-shaped roof supports around Busch Stadium's exterior distinguished it from all the other anonymous characterless circular hybrid stadiums built in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Another difference from other stadiums of that era was that Busch Stadium's roof covered almost all of the upper deck; that was appropriate given the hot, steamy summer days in St. Louis.
The original outfield dimensions of Busch Stadium were quite deep, 414 to center field and 386 feet to the power alleys. There were a few adjustments back and forth during the 1970s and 1980s, but the distance to the foul poles remained fixed at 330 feet. There is more foul territory around home plate than is/was the case at most other stadiums with the "paired swivelable circular section lower deck" (PSCSLD) configuration, of which Busch was the third such instance. The original grass field was replaced by Astroturf in 1970, and in 1977 the infield dirt was replaced by Astroturf except for around the bases. The artificial surface often raised the temperature on the field by ten degrees or more.
One of the most successful medium-market baseball franchises ever, the Cardinals won the World Series one year after moving into their new home, and did so again in 1982. During the 1980s shortstop Ozzie Smith dazzled crowds with his amazing defensive plays and exhuberant acrobatics. After St. Louis acquired Mark McGwire from the Oakland A's in mid-1997, the Cardinals began generating excitement once again. The fact that McGwire hit his 62nd and 70th home runs in Busch Stadium in 1998 has endowed this ballpark with transcendent historical significance.
Contrary to my original supposition, Busch Stadium was slightly elliptical in shape, not circular. The only other cookie-cutter "doughnut" stadium that shares this characteristic was Three Rivers Stadium in Pittsburgh. Otherwise, it was quite similar in terms of overall layout to the Astrodome, which was circular. In both of those stadiums, at least originally, the foul poles at coincided exactly with the edge of the upper (non-rotatable) portion of the first deck. Mark McGwire's 70th home run in 1998 just barely cleared the left field fence, landing underneath the seating section.
CINEMA: Parts of Fever Pitch (2005), starring Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon, were filmed in Busch Stadium, during the (real-life!) 2004 World Series between the Red Sox and the Cardinals.
The St. Louis Cardinals football team played in the second incarnation of Busch Stadium from 1966 until 1987, after which they moved to Phoenix, Arizona. For the first two months after moving from Los Angeles in 1995, the St. Louis Rams played in Busch Stadium as well. After the new domed football stadium on the north side of downtown was finished, there was no longer any prospect that Busch Stadium might become a multi-sport venue again, so work began on transforming it into a baseball-only facility. Real grass was planted in 1996, and a grassy slope was planted in center field, flanked by new bleachers with actual bench seats. In addition, a new family pavilion and a picnic area called "Homer's Landing" were built behind the new bullpens (which were moved from foul territory to right- and left-center fields), and the formerly curved fence was made straight in front of the bullpens, an interesting if minor quirk. Finally, the formerly "swivelable" lower decks were extended to fill in the space in the right and left field corners, with a few extra rows of box seats in front. In 1997 the rarely-occupied upper portion of the outfield upper deck was closed off by the installation of a huge hand-operated scoreboard, video screens, and a row of banners displaying the team's many past triumphs and star players. This reduced the capacity from about 57,000 to about 50,000. In its last few years with lush green grass, Busch Stadium gleamed as though it were new, even though it was one of the last of the "doughnut" stadiums. Construction on the Cardinals' new home, Busch Stadium III, located on the south side of the "old" Busch Stadium (II), began in early 2004. The left field grandstand of the new stadium overlaps with the first base side grandstand of the old stadium. In the last game ever played at Busch Stadium II, on October 19, 2005, the Astros beat the Cardinals, 5-1, earning their first-ever trip to the World Series. That gave construction workers a couple extra weeks to demolish Busch Stadium soon thereafter, so that Busch Stadium III could be ready for Opening Day 2006.
SOURCES: Lowry (1992, 2006); Pastier (2006, 2007); Rosen (2003); Gershman (1993); USA Today / Fodor's (1996)
FAN TIPS: Ian Scott, Jonathan Karberg
