Baseball DIY

The sun shone in St. Louis today for the first time since the Cardinals' season ended. The last two days were dreary; the gloom in the sky weighed you down when you walked outside.

I'll admit to experiencing a slight depression on Thursday. Wednesday night's game didn't really break my heart; we weren't close enough for that. It was like being smothered with a pillow rather than getting shot in the chest, to use a disproportionate metaphor. I know that the Cardinals could and would beat the Astros in any other seven-game series, in any sphere of existence, but the series they played in this reality didn't go their way. That's the way the dice roll.

Like I said, though, the sun was out today. Jill, Erin, Bob, Chris, Brad, and I drove down to Busch Stadium to get some pictures and graffiti it up a little bit before they knock it down in a couple of weeks. The only part of the stadium we could get to was right next to the gift shop. Those owners are smart. I bought a couple of overpriced, official St. Louis Cardinals markers and we got to work. Chris and Brad had fun scribbling on a building, and the grown-ups had fun reading what other grown-ups had written. Fans had professed love for a number of players, and I put in a good word for Kerry Robinson and Fernando Vina.

We weren't the only ones who had this agenda today. There were probably 20-30 other people there with the same general idea. One nice man emerged from the stadium (how'd he get in?) with a cup of dirt from the infield and gave it to Brad. He wasn't too impressed, but Chris was: he thought it was chocolate.

We got chunks of marble from the pedestals that statues had stood on, and we ripped up some tile in front of the gift shop. Less work for the wrecking crew, we figured. In a few weeks, Jill and I will get a hulking package on our doorsteps that will contain two seats taken from Busch's heavenlies.

I'm excited about getting the seats, but mainly because they're Cardinal seats, not because they're Busch Stadium seats. This whole season has been a long, drawn-out, maudlin "farewell" to Busch, complete with an offending-to-the-eye patch on players' uniforms. People cried at the last regular season game and at the last game ever.

I didn't. I didn't cry today when we were there. I've had a lot of fun at Busch Stadium; I've been there dozens of times with most of the people that I love. But, come on, it's been around for 40 years. 40. It's not Notre Dame or something. Baseball's not leaving St. Louis; it'll just be played in a different building.

I'm tired of hearing about the "loss" of Busch Stadium because of the implied emphasis on the physical shell rather than the spirit of baseball; because of people's hang-up on what happened in the past rather than what will happen in the future; and because of some fans' resistance to admitting that, all things considered, there wasn't anything special about this version of Busch Stadium.

"Except," they'd say, "for the memories that were created there."

To which I'd reply, "Memories can be created anywhere. And they'll follow you everywhere."

There's no time like the offseason to remind you, helpfully, that any stadium, at its core, is just a bunch of concrete and steel.