Monday, May 19, 2008

New Cardinal Ballpark

My wife and I went to the ballgame last Friday to watch the Cardinals play the Devil Rays in what was a really booring Cardinal loss. My daughter bought us the tickets, bless her little heart, for my birthday. We had never been to the new park before so I was pretty excited to see it for the first time. The seats were along the 1st base side but about 5 rows from the very top of the stadium. To me, from that vantage point the stadium seemed cramped and cheap. The people around us were more interested in drinking and screwing around than watching the game. Many were just plain drunk and obscene. We were constantly getting up to let people in and out that were just coming over to visit other drunk people. One girl dumped her 8.75 dollar beer all over a 6 year old boy and his grandmother who were actually trying to watch the game. She quickly disapeared and never returned. One young girl said to a guy sitting a row below her, quite loudly and within 10 feet of the aforementione 6 year old boy, "Hey Brian, if you go with me to get another beer you might get some pussy tonight". Thats just great. Hey, dont get me wrong; I'm not a prude, but that was real trailer-park-trash. I had serious doubts as to how many of them actually even knew the score. Maybe the experience is better if you have better seats but the 26 dollars it cost me for 2 hotdogs 2 fries and 1 coke is stealing where I come from.
I guess my real beef is that this is a cheap stadium that is hyped by the Cardinal media machine as being 'Baseball Heaven" and that is bullcrap plain and simple. The St Louis Cardinals are the greatest team in National League history and are near the top in attendance year after year. Only the Yankees have won more World Series than the Cardinals so in my mind this city and this team deserved one of the best stadiums in baseball and instead got a minor-leaguer. It even feels like a minor league stadium with all the noise and advertisements bombarding you and every chance. And the seats are fantastic if you weigh 120 pounds and are missing at least one arm.
The only way I will return to this place is if I get free tickets and they are field boxs. Personally im not expecting those would be a lot better. Shame on all Cardinal fans for letting them get away with building this second-rate park for our first rate team.

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