July 01, 2009

Show-Me Baseball

I returned Tuesday afternoon from a wonderful five-day trip with my dad to St. Louis and Kansas City to watch our beloved Twins take on first the St. Louis Cardinals and then the Kansas City Royals in their respective home parks, neither of which I'd been to (nor had I been to either city.) A few notes on the trip:

- I liked downtown St. Louis, it seemed to have a lot of cool stuff packed into not that many square blocks (our hotel was right between the Gateway Arch and the stadium.) Had two great meals the two nights we were there: one at Max and Erma's and the other at Mike Shannon's.

- Things I liked about Busch Stadium: It looks great from the outside and inside; you can't go wrong with the red brick and red seats. It's totally respectful of the illustrious history of both the team and St. Louis as a baseball town. It plays neither too big nor too small, and they even kept the "Big Mac" thing in left field even though McGwire is both long-gone and long-disgraced.

- Things I didn't like about Busch Stadium: Unlike just about every ballpark built in the last ten years, you can't see into the field from the concourses; Philly and Citi Field, among other places, not only encourage this but even have tables set up so you can eat there. And speaking of eating... Busch has the least diversity of food options of any ballpark I've ever been to, new or old- sure, the stands all have different names, but it's the same five things at all of them, except for the occasional nacho booth. And third of all, the railings at the bottom of the decks are about knee-high, so low that a dude apparently fell out of the upper deck Friday night. He was okay, having landed, bloodily, in the deck below.

Of stadiums built since 2000 that I've been to, I put Busch ahead of Cincinnati, but behind San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Philly, and Citi Field.

- No mention on Saturday or Sunday that the Twins and Cards were playing in a rematch of the 1987 World Series. They could've had Tommy Herr and Steve Lombardozzi jointly throw out the first pitch or something.

- There's a bust of Jack Buck outside Busch, which even includes audio of some of his more famous calls. It doesn't include "And we'll see you... tomorrow night," however.

- At the Cardinals game- even though he's now with the Blue Jays, there were way, way, more Scott Rolen jerseys than I'm used to seeing at Phillies games. I wonder why. Though I don't think I've ever seen a J.D. Drew jersey at either place.

- A WHOLE lot of Twins fans at both parks, probably more in St. Louis since it was a weekend and a rare chance for Minnesota fans to see their team at a newish National League park. We travel very well, although starting next year outdoor baseball won't have the novelty for Minnesotans that it does now.

- Difference between the East Coast and Midwest- I wore a hat/jersey of the visiting team to all three games, and not only did no one throw a beer or try to fight me, nobody even said anything.

- I saw a St. Louis tourism magazine that listed the city as one of the 50 most friendly places in the U.S. for gays and lesbians. Which sounds good, except... is it really that much of an accomplishment to make the top 50? "Ooh, we beat out Corpus Christi!"

- After a five-hour drive through the parts of Missouri that I'm guessing John Ashcroft carried by double digits every time he ran, we arrived in Kansas City Monday afternoon. We really should've planned it differently and come in the night before, since we were left with not much time to see the city. And not only that, but the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, which I'd been looking forward to visiting for months, was closed on Mondays, it turns out.

- Let me just say- I loved just about EVERYTHING about Kauffmann Stadium. It was renovated recently to the tune of $200 million, and the renovation gave it wider concourses, a more open outfield, and an incredible scoreboard, maybe the best I've ever seen. If only they had a better team playing there... it's also part of a Philly-like sports complex, in the middle of a giant parking lot that it shares with the other stadium, a ways away from downtown.

- Also really liked the WWE-like stadium intro for closer Joakim Soria, which combined flames on every scoreboard with the stadium's trademark waterfalls going at full-blast. Almost enough to justify the team having a closer.

- The Royals have a very loyal and energetic fan base, for a team that's been unspeakably godawful for the better part of two decades. True, the Royals probably rank a distant third in that town behind the Chiefs and University of Kansas basketball, but the crowd was still sizable and reasonably energetic. Which was a good thing, except for the two idiots in front of us, who spent the majority of the game hitting on the likely high-school-aged girls next to them, before one of them assumed that because I'm from Minnesota, I must have had some chewing tobacco on me.

- There's a statue of Frank White, the 1980s Royals second baseman, in center field at Kauffman; a few minutes after seeing it, I saw White himself, appearing on the team's pregame show in a booth about 20 feet away. That's gotta be pretty awesome to walk by a statue of yourself on the way to work every day.

- Similarly, both Mark McGwire and George Brett have highways named after them in their respective cities. And just as both Cincinnati's Pete Rose Way and Minneapolis' Kirby Puckett Place have remained in place despite the players' post-retirement disgraces, Missouri neither pulled McGwire's highway after the steroid revelations, nor Brett's, after this.

- I sort of got screwed on barbecue for the trip to KC. I was told I had to check out Arthur Bryant's, Gates, or possibly both. My dad said they had Gates right in the ballpark and we should wait and have that, but... once we got in we found Gates was gone at the end of last year. Apparently, much as what happened at my college a decade ago, Aramark took over and ruined everything. We did have barbecue that wasn't bad - and the food options, except for something called a "KC Cheese Steak" looked all right- but it wasn't the same. Then, the next day, there was a full Arthur Bryant's open in the airport. I would've partaken had it not been 9 in the morning.

- And finally, the baseball... the Twins took 2 of 3 from the Cards, although since we missed the Friday game they split the ones we went to. Joe Mauer actually got his average up to .400 after one at-bat Saturday, but by Monday night it was down to .390. On Monday in KC the team had a chance to go to a season-high of two games above .500, but alas they lost to the Royals.

The team's got a lot of talent- two superstars on offense in Mauer and Morneau, and a fair amount of secondary talent in Cuddyer, Kubel, Span and Crede. Their starting pitching is solid but not dominant- though Francisco Liriano looked good Saturday-, and the bullpen is pretty suspect behind Joe Nathan. But jeez- I knew Delmon Young sucked, but seeing it in person really drove the point home. If the Twins could come up with solid regulars at second base and in left field, and added another reliever or two, they'd be in business.

All in all, a great trip, I highly recommend it or something like it.

Posted by Stephen Silver at July 1, 2009 01:13 AM
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