There's a lot to be said for Sportsman's Park

At a recent family event, my father-in-law, Harry Mayfield, made some insightful comments about one of my favorite topics, St. Louis Cardinal Baseball.


That didn’t surprise me. But I left the conversation with one disturbing fact. Harry, a St. Louis native, had last watched a Cardinal ballgame in Sportsman’s Park, the former home of both the Cards and the Browns on Grand in north St. Louis back in the day. He completely missed the first Busch Stadium. Didn’t attend a live baseball game in Baseball Heaven from 1966-2006. And had not been to Busch II. He missed an entire stadium.

I couldn’t have that.

I told Carol to get tickets so we could take her family (including our daughter) to the current home of the Cards. That’s when things starting spinning out of control. I mean almost nothing went right.

Carol told me she bought “good tickets” along the third base line.

Enroot to the stadium, we noticed the skies turning angry. The plan was to gather at the Scott Air Force Base Metrolink and roll into downtown on light rail. Why mess with the hassle of traffic?

I am well-educated. But the instructions to facilitate five, round trip rides, were daunting. And the skies opened as I stood in front of a God-less machine that was built to dispense Metrolink tickets. My debit card failed, my credit card failed……but it took a $20 bill for a $24 fare. I had four wet one-dollar bills to continue to limply push into the slot. There was a distinct “failure to launch” feel to the exercise. Finally, I took another crisp $20, which of course worked. The machine spit a dozen or so tokens into the water-filled gutter at the bottom of the machine. I scrambled to grab them, shake the water off them, and deposit them into my wet drawers.

The instructions were to have each ticket “validated” before you got on the train. Again…..I’m there waving these limp, wet tickets under a scanner that doesn’t recognize their value. I decided we were getting on the next train….and God help the Metrolink employee who tried to stop us. Let me foreshadow that later I would come to understand that sometimes no Metrolink employee…was better than the alternative.

As I walked, my weighted down, token-filled, pockets made jingle-jangle sounds like I was wearing spurs.

We got to the stadium. That’s when the real fun started.

Carol dispensed the five tickets she had printed from our computer back home. I was the first in line as the stadium attendant scanned everyone’s media…whether it be a traditional ticket…..or our 8x11 pieces of copier paper. As the fans poured in front of me, the positive sounds of access were dinging along.

That is….until I got to the front of the line.

“Bong.” The scanner made a different sound when placed over my ticket.

“Sorry sir,” the ticket-taker said to me. “Your ticket is for July 6th vs. the Marlins.”

In fact, my wife had mistakenly purchased five day-game tickets for a future game.

Now, I had immediate things cross my mind…..but as an educated man…..I have learned to engage a mythical clutch between my brain and my mouth. I did, however, administer “the look” to Carol.

“How did this happen?” was all I muttered as a few hundred people waiting in line stared back at me.

Carol was speechless.

Before allowing my foot to slip off the clutch, I immediately went into damage control. I moved all of us to an awning area, so the pounding rain wouldn’t ruin our incorrect tickets……and raced to the nearest ticket window.

“Is this sold out?” I uttered.

“Don’t think so,” said the attendant.

I purchased five more tickets. The cost was irrelevant. The thought crossed my mind----at least I will be coming back on July 6th.

The new tickets worked. We made our way to our seats just in time to see the ground crew put the tarp on the field. That wasn’t a big deal. Our new seats were under roof….and the game started a little over an hour later.

But in the spirit of the evening----the Cardinals lost.

On the way out of the stadium, we made our way to the Metrolink depot at the stadium. We squeezed onto an eastbound train and witnessed one of the most shameful displays of security in history.

As we were entering the train, a guy was flung across two seats….and a Metrolink security cop told him to move into one or the other.

The rider didn’t like the suggestion.

He let loose a challenge to the officer that used the “f-word” as a noun, verb, adverb and object of the proposition.

The security officer looked him straight in the eye…..turned….and walked off the train.

In other words, he incited the altercation……then left so the rest of us could deal with a continuing rant.

I looked over at Carol….who mouthed these words to me:

“Parking Garage.”

That is two-word code for-----“this is our last Metrolink ride.”

By that time my pants were riding low with about 25 (now useless) Metrolink tokens.

My mother-in-law seemed to find it all pretty entertaining.

As for Harry….given the abundant challenges faced in this first-time-trip to Baseball Heaven…..

He probably feels justified watching baseball all those years--on the dish--back at the farm.

There’s a lot less trouble associated with the experience.

He probably felt justification for missing……..an entire Busch Stadium.