Robert And I Attend A Cardinals Game
It amazes me that I've attended somewhere between a dozen and two dozen Cardinal games in the new stadium, including Game 3 of the World Series in 2006, and I've still not had to sit in the upper deck. And for Robert's first Cardinal game in the new stadium we had club seats. Originally I was to take one of our co-workers (Chris) from the Maryland office to the Saturday game, but he had already purchased a standing room only ticket. That didn't stop us from meeting Chris at Kayak's near Washington University for breakfast. I had a mexican wrap sandwich/omelet thingy and Robert had chocolate waffles with chocolate chips. He washed it all down with a s'mores latte so you know he was wired for sound.
Chris was in town for a proof of concept project with Microsoft and their Performance Point software. On his own he decided to hang around Saint Louis to explore for the weekend and hanging out at the Cards game for a couple of hours was on his agenda. We parked the truck at the Delmar Metrolink station and rode downtown with Chris. On the way, I tried to point out a couple of Saint Louis landmarks: the Central West End, Forest Park, SLU, The Shell Building, The Wainwright building, Union Station, etc. Eventually we parked near city hall and walked the six blocks or so to the game.
Robert and I headed to our seats which were as awesome as club seats usually are. The game was a pretty good pitching matchup between Adam Wainwright and Roy Oswalt. Wainwright was pretty much unhittable save for three solo shots, one by the unlikely Kaz Matsui and the other two by the very likely Lance Berkman. At one point Wainwright threw behind Houston catcher Brad Ausmus and the benches and bullpens emptied. Ausmus was hot, and rightly so, but no punches were thrown. This was game 2 of the 20+ games between the Cards and Astros so you can imagine that in September these guys are going to have a good old fashioned brawl. Robert asked if baseball players fought as much as hockey players and I struggled to explain the unwritten rules that are part of every sport and why violating them sometimes warranted an attitude adjustment. I didn't do a very good job.
I have a lot of great memories of baseball, but probably the biggest one is the one that every kid has. That's the one where it's bottom of the ninth, two outs, and you are at bat. Of course you hit the home run/dinger/tater. It's a great fantasy for a ten year old. I can't imagine what it would be like for a real live major leaguer to actually live it. Skip Schumaker does and he did a variation of it (only one out) for us this day. The crowd went nuts. Not Go Crazy Folks! kind of nuts, but very loud nonetheless. It was a great way to end the day. Let me correct that, riding the train back to the Delmar station is a great way to end the day. Oh, and stopping to get a suicide slushie at Quik Trip certainly added to that too.
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