Stadium Report Cards: Busch Stadium

Bmac emailed me a report card for his trip to St. Louis!

Team: St. Louis Cardinals
Location: St. Louis, MO
League: NL Central
Built: 2006
Capacity: 43,975
My event: Regular season game, vs San Francisco Giants

1. Outdoor Design

It is absolutely beautiful. Easily one of the best outdoor designs I have ever seen. And it fits in with the city so well. A nice brick layout all around.
9/10

2. Indoor Design

The view from inside is pretty awesome. The ballpark itself it great and the St. Louis Arch in the background looks pretty cool. The stadium is laid out nicely as well, nice concourses and everything.
10/10

3. Prices
Not too bad, fairly priced, compared to other MLB parks.
7/10

4. Food
They had some good food, but nothing too exciting that you couldn’t find anywhere else. Which seems to be the case at a lot of ballparks.
6/10

5. Staff
The people working there were some of the nicest people I have ever met at a ballpark. Everyone was so friendly and helpful.
9/10

6. Cleanliness
It was nice, but nothing too great.
6/10

7. Parking
There was a lot of parking around the stadium, and lots scattered around the city within simple walking distance.
7/10

8. Atmosphere
It was nice, everyone was into the game. The fans weren’t overly noisy, but they cheered on the Cardinals often. They're often called the best fans in baseball for a reason.
8/10

9. Playing Surface.

About average for an outdoor field. Nice, crisp lines, as seen above.
7/10

10. Scoreboard

Good size, nice graphics. I didn’t have a great view of it, but it looked pretty nice.
8/10

77! Thats one of the lower MLB stadiums so far. I think it's right around this range, but who know, It's really nice from the pics I've seen. He still is going to do more reports from his MLB trip for us to enjoy.

I'll get a story on the new Penguins arena up this week too.

A look back at KC Municipal Stadium

Saw a story on this on uniwatch.com. I rewrote it.

Back in the day, when the A's played in Kansas City... They had a crazy owner. The guy was named Charles O. Finley. He was full of gimmicks, such as orange baseballs. But the stadium they used changed a lot, and sometimes were just plain silly. Before Finley was in charge, previous owner bought the scoreboard from the Boston Braves park, when they moved to Milwaukee.

After that, Finley bought the A's, and changed things. The A's became more colourful. He saw that Yankee Stadium had a really short path from the plate to right field. There was a rule that to the right field pole, it must be atleast 325 feet. He found a way around it. As you can see, he found a loop hole around it. Yes, this really happened. Over the seats there, he had a roof overhanging the field, making it even shorter, just like Yankee stadium. When MLB officials came, he protested that it was for protection from the sun. They made him take it down the follwing week.

He wanted to also match Yankee stadium's dimensions, but didn't have the land. He put up 40 foot screen in right field. for it to be a home run, it would have to go over. What was originally 338, now was 392. Harvey thought that Umpires didn't need to carry around a bag of baseballs, so he made a device that came out of the ground. It was a basket of balls with rabbits on it. When it came up, the organist would play here comes Peter Cottontail.

Down the left field line, there was a little think for the kids! A petting zoo was there, complete with a stable for team mascot Charlie O. The mule was housed out there as well as many other animals including another pet, this one a dog named “Old Drum”. The German Shorthaired Pointer was joined by a Chinese Golden Pheasant, German Checker Rabbits, Peafowl, and Capuchin Monkeys. They were all fed by the Kansas City Farmers Market and the Detroit Tigers bullpen pitchers who tossed the monkeys vodka-soaked oranges.

Oh wait! Theres more!

Before there were stands in right field, there was a grassy hillside. But the gimmick is, Finley had sheep and a Sheppard hanging out on it. Again, not letting an inch of space go unused, Finley had a flock of sheep grazing the area wearing team colored blankets emblazoned with the A’s logo, some yellow with a green A and others the opposite.

During their early years, the Kansas City Chiefs also played there. But everyone still remembers the stadium as a baseball stadium.


So there it is. It's pretty much the old New Marlins Ballpark. Just crazy gimmicky stuff everywhere.

I have some posts coming up in the near future. But comment!

Flip Flop Flyball

I know this cool site, seen here. It's called Flip Flop Flyball. The guy makes all sorts of graphs and charts about baseball. They're very cool, and these are some of the baseball stadium ones.

Stadium Report Cards: Bright House Network Stadium

Team: University of Central Florida Football
Location: Orlando, FL
League: Conference USA
Built: 2007
Capacity: 45,301
My event: Regular season game, vs NC State Wolfpack

1. Outdoor Design

It has a classic and modern feel at the same time, full metal, with a mix of bricks
6/10

2. Indoor Design

It was a bowl style stadium, and it seemed really small from the inside. There was a pressbox are on the west side of the stadium overlooking the field. But the fact all the seats were benches probably brought it to a 3
6/10

3. Prices
Our tickets said 40(but we got them for free), but thats average for college games. I did check out the food prices, and they were also average. So they get an average score.
6/10

4. Food
I didn't really eat, thanks to the tailgating. But they had the regulars, some hot dogs, nachos, ect.
6/10

5. Staff
The staff was pretty nice, especially since I was in NC State gear. Unlike the students, they didn't hold biases.
8/10

6. Cleanliness
The whole campus was really clean, and the stadium wasn't any difference. It's a new stadium, so it was expected.
7/10

7. Parking
Parking... looked bad. They have 6 parking garages on campus, and the one we were directed to was about, oh say, a mile and a half away. It was cool walking through campus, but its still a trek. Especially parking garage style, you thought it would be a mess, but it wasn't really bad getting out.
5/10

8. Atmosphere

It was pretty rocking for a non BCS team. Although, it wasn't sold out, and they were quiet down 3 touchdowns. It still was pretty neat.
8/10

9. Playing Surface.

It was fantastic. Natural grass that looked near perfect. The only thing I thought of, would be having a black outline around the gold.
10/10

10. Scoreboard

Pretty average. The sound system was kinda crappy. Every third down, they'd play a bell ringing, which was shaky at times, and the PA Announcer didn't know what he was doing. He called NC State... South Dakota at one point.
6/10

So that gives it a 68. Not bad, not bad at all. That's a good representation of it.

The Soap Opera of PGE Park

If you don't know, Portland Timbers will be in the MLS next season. The team was formed in the 70s, and the identity survived after the NASL folded. They were reborn as a "Minor League" team in the USL. The citizens love them. Well PGE Park just quite isn't suitable for a pro soccer team, since the Timbers split it with the AAA team Portland Beavers. But they voted for and will get a renovation to 21,000 seats. Here's a computer mock up below.

But what about the Beavers? Portland's two most storied franchises(Sorry Blazers) must be split a part. In this tale of tragedy, the Beavers are left cold and homeless. As you can see, the new seats will be put in where left field, where the street overlooks the field. You can't play baseball in that! Well, you can, but still! Luckily the Beavers have plans for a new park.

Wait. WHAT? THAT HASN'T BEEN APPROVED?! Awe man. Beavers, this is the end. It's not you, its me. It's been fun. I still love you.

Just for reference, here is what the stadium looks like now. I thought it looked kind of run down from the pictures, and the renovation will help out a lot, so that's cool.

The Beavers played their last game in Portland for the near future on Monday.No word on the Beavers new homes. They were sold, and are still looking for places. The Padres are the affiliate, and theres talks of moving to a suburb of San Diego. But some people are saying a possible move to El Paso, or Tucson. Tucson lost their AAA team a few years ago to Reno, so they have a stadium built already. Not mentioned above, was the Portland State Vikings also played at PGE, and I assume that they will still play on the soccer field.

On an unrelated note, I'll be at the UCF-NC State game saturday night in Orlando, therefore a new report card! I might get TC to do one this weekend too, so I can hook you guys up. Also, the stadium I linked is the LA Coliseum.

Silverdome to go Topless?

The Silverdome was sold last year for under 600,000 dollars, purchased by Steve Apostolopoulos of Triple Sports and Entertainment, and he has some radical ideas for the ol' dome. They would tear off the Silverdome's air-supported roof and divide the place horizontally into two levels with a new floor across what is now the middle deck. Atop this would sit an outdoor soccer field with less than half the current seats. Below it would be smaller spaces for basketball and hockey games or other events.

It's difficult to imagine, but maybe this will help. If you have a ticket in the front row of the upper deck, with this proposed layout, you could lean over the railing and get an autograph, or catch a player doing a "Lambeau Leap."

The main goal is to attract an MLS team to Detroit. It could work, I'd love to see them pull off the renovations to the dome.