Busch's ambience set it apart from others
ST. LOUIS -- Even a cookie-cutter stadium -- which is the pejorative term that came to describe the multipurpose bowls that seemed to spring up simultaneously in Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Atlanta, Queens, Philadelphia, and St. Louis in the late 1960s and early '70s -- can have their quirks.
Just ask Vince Coleman, who was one of the fastest men ever to wear a Cardinals uniform, stealing 110 bases as a rookie in 1985. Coleman was idling near the Busch Stadium batting cage before Game 4 of the 1985 National League playoffs against the Los Angeles Dodgers when he caught his foot under the aluminum casing of a 1,200-pound automatic tarp-rolling machine.
"I thought he was screwing around," said Dodgers bullpen coach Mark Cresse.
Hardly. Coleman sustained bruises from his ankle to mid-thigh, wrenched his knee, and was lost for the rest of the postseason to the Cardinals, who blew a three-games-to-one lead in the World Series to the Royals and 21-year-old ace Bret Saberhagen.
Busch Stadium -- not to be confused with its predecessor, which was the renamed Sportsman's Park after beer baron August (Gussie) Busch bought the club in 1953 -- is scheduled to shutter its doors after the 2005 season, though it will still be a short walk from the Bowling Hall of Fame to the $300-million-plus new facility that will still be known as Busch when it opens in 2006.
When Busch Stadium opened in 1966 -- Ray Washburn was the winning pitcher on May 12, 1966, when the Cardinals edged the Braves, 4-3, in 12 innings before a crowd of 46,048 -- the field was grass, though you couldn't buy a hot dog. The gas had yet to be connected to the grills, so they sold ham and cheese sandwiches instead.
It was still grass the last time the Red Sox came here to play in a World Series, in 1967, when baseball's greatest home run hitter to that point -- Roger Maris -- played right field for the home team, and it was grass when Mark McGwire, the man who broke Maris's record of 61 home runs in a season, hit 70 homers in 1998. That was the year McGwire hit the longest ball in Busch Stadium history, a 545-foot drive off Livan Hernandez of the Florida Marlins that hit the St. Louis Post-Dispatch sign hanging from the upper deck in center field. Afterward, they put a giant Band-Aid on the sign.
(McGwire, who played just 4 1/2 seasons in St. Louis before deciding he liked golf better, ranks second with 119 home runs in Busch Stadium. The leader? Ray Lankford, who hit 121.)
And it will be grass tonight, when the Sox and Redbirds meet in Game 3 of the 100th World Series.
But for a period of 26 seasons, from 1970 to 1996, the Busch surface was AstroTurf, a rug that Hall of Fame shortstop Ozzie Smith used to employ as his personal trampoline while executing the backflips that would become his signature. And the Cardinals often tailored their team to the artificial rug, with players who could run and drive balls into the gap that would seemingly roll forever, guys like Tommy Herr and Willie McGee, the player they called "
Like the other cookie-cutters, you couldn't find a ballpark more different from Fenway Park in feel, except in the stands, where the price of admission apparently included a promise from the paying customer that he or she would wear red. The dimensions are symmetrical: 330 feet down both lines, 372 feet in the power alleys, 402 feet in center field.
Those are numbers well within reach of most sluggers, though it is the obscure Mike Laga, a reserve first baseman for the Cardinals, who is acknowledged as the only player ever to hit a ball out of the cylindrical stadium.
On Sept. 15, 1986, against the New York Mets, the lefthanded-hitting Laga hit a foul ball down the first-base line that left the ballpark approximately two-thirds of the way down the line. Laga hit just 16 home runs in his career, only two in Busch Stadium.
One thing Sox fans will miss here tonight: The sight of Gussie Busch riding shotgun on the beer wagon pulled by a team of Clydesdales. During the '85 Series, Busch was nearly sent tumbling when the Clydesdales took an unexpected detour over the mound, which had the wagon listing.
The great horses left their mark in the '82 World Series, too, with an unsolicited deposit in the first-base coach's box.
