B4B First Pitch: Cardinals Edition
St. Louis is a great baseball city. The Cardinals won the World Series last year for the second time in 6 years and 11th time in their history. That’s a great feat only the Yankees have matched. The game we were scheduled to attend also happened to be the celebration of last year’s championship team with the World Series replica ring give-away. Needless to say, we were incredibly excited for this game when we saw that on the schedule!
The World Series ring was only secondary to our main excitement for the Cardinals game. A few weeks back, we had found out that the Cardinals were giving B4B the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at that game. Of course, we were ecstatic and honored. What a cool thing to do. Leading up to the game, we had to choose who would actually be throwing the first pitch. Biking for Baseball was being honored before the game, but we wanted to bring attention to our partner, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater St. Louis. We decided to have their Youth of the Year, Marsha, take the honor of throwing the first pitch. She did great!
The whole experience surrounding the first pitch was incredibly memorable for us. We got to the stadium to meet with the Cardinals employee who was kind of our chaperone. She explained the routine and shuffled us from point A to point B, but first she took us to the Marty Hendin First Pitch Room. The room had about 6 tables, Cardinals memorabilia all over the walls, and a bartender serving unlimited free soft drinks and beer*. There were a handful of other people in the room that were also taking part in the pregame on-field festivities. We chatted for a bit, and they gave us the standard advice of not bouncing it. Thanks!
*We opted for water in the 105 degree weather!
When it was our time to shine, we were herded through the lower bowels of the stadium through a tunnel that came directly to the field. We were greeted with our first sight of Busch Stadium from field level. It’s a pretty incredible experience emerging from the tunnel to the enormity of the stadium and the crisp perfectness of the playing field. The perspective from this level is soooo much different from the seats we usually sit in.
We stood next to the fence behind home plate awaiting our turn for about 5 minutes, snapping photos the entire time and just taking in all of the sights. As we were hanging out by the fence a man approached us and asked if we were the guys from Boulder. The man was dressed nicely with khaki pants and a nice dress shirt and had a very familiar look to him. “You can call me Mo,” he said to us when we were finally realizing who the man was. John Mozeliak, General Manager of the St Louis Cardinals! Mo is from Boulder, CO and went to the same high school that Steve went to. We were very honored that he came down to the field to say hi to us!
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to chat with Mo for too long because it was our turn to be introduced and Marsha to throw out the first pitch. We were led right behind home plate and the PA announcer read our spiel about B4B and introduced Marsha and the four of us. Then she stepped to the field in front of the mound to the throw the pitch to Cardinals relief pitcher Barret Browning. Marsha had mentioned earlier that she had no baseball experience and was nervous about the pitch. Well she must have ice running through her veins because she nailed it! She threw a strike right over the plate with no bounce! It was incredible!
Barret Browning autographed the ball for Marsha right on the field and after plenty of Hi-5s, we were herded to the tunnel to leave the field. On our way out we caught a quick glimpse of Cardinals great Lou Brock and others who were being honored after us. Very cool! We went back to the First Pitch room, snapped some pictures, gathered our belongings, and headed towards the front office. We thanked the Cardinals staff and we were sent back outside to enter the seating portion of the stadium through the main fan entrance.
After being treated like VIP’s and being ushered from place to place, we were on our own in regards to actually having a ticket to the game. It was incredibly ironic that the only tickets we could afford were standing room only tickets to this game, and they were extremely overpriced because of the replica ring give-away. So we went from being honored on the field and throwing the first pitch to standing way in the outfield behind rows of other people with standing room only tickets. Its really funny if you think about it, and I’m not sure how other teams handle the first pitch in their stadiums. Either way, it definitely did not take away from the excitement of being on the field for the first pitch, especially for sold-out replica ring give-away night!
Busch Stadium is a very beautiful park with a great view of downtown St. Louis and the Gateway Arch. It has a retro-modern design, and the Cardinals do a great job of making sure this contemporary stadium appropriately honors the great history of Cardinals baseball. It is one of our favorite stadiums for sure! With our standing room only tickets, we had plenty of time to explore the concourse and try to find different vantage points to watch the game. We had our favorite Midwest beer, Boulevard. Our only complaint was that the infield concourse is separated from the field, so you can’t stroll the concourse and view the playing field. That is something we like to do, but a very small complaint compared to the rest of the beautiful stadium.
It’s very difficult for a team to win a game when they get 16 at bats with runners in scoring position, but get only 2 hits in those at bats. The Cardinals still almost did that at the game we went to, but the offense wasted a good effort by starting pitcher Jake Westbrook. Westbrook went 6 2/3 innings giving up 5 hits and only one earned run in the Cardinals 3-2 loss to the Miami Marlins. Cardinals third baseman David Freese had some defensive trouble in the 6th inning by committing 2 errors that led to a Marlins run and switched the momentum of the game to Miami’s favor. Logan Morrison hit a huge insurance home run in the 8th inning to give the Marlins a 3-1 lead before Heath Bell made it interesting in the bottom of the 9th. Three Cardinals players reached base in the inning, but Bell narrowly escaped with his 19th save of the season.
B4B had a blast at the game, and we almost saw some late game heroics for the home team. Alas, it was not to be, but we are hoping to see the home team with walk-off win at some point this season. Busch Stadium was great! No off to the west to see Kauffman Stadium and the Royals!
Gm 1– 4/13 @ Safeco Field – Oakland A’s @ Seattle Mariners
Oakland wins 4-0 (WP – Colon, LP – Hernandez)
Gm 2 – 4/24 @ O.Co Stadium – Chicago White Sox @ Oakland A’s
Oakland wins 2-0 (WP – Milone, LP – Floyd, SV – Balfour)
Gm 3 – 4/27 @ AT&T Park – San Diego Padres @ San Francisco Giants
San Diego wins 5-3 (WP – Luebke, LP – Hacker, SV – Street)
Gm 4 – 5/3 @ Angels Stadium – Toronto Blue Jays @ LA Angels of Anaheim
Toronto wins 5-0 (WP – Morrow, LP – Haren)
Gm 5 – 5/7 @ Dodger Stadium – SF Giants @ Los Angeles Dodgers
Dodgers win 9-1 (WP – Lilly, LP – Zito)
Gm 6 – 5/8 @ Petco Park – Colorado Rockies @ San Diego Padres
Padres win 3-1 (WP – Suppan, LP – White, SV – Thayer)
Gm 7 – 5/12 @ Chase Field – San Francisco Giants @ Arizona Diamondbacks
Giants win 5-2 (WP – Cain, LP – Cahill, SV – Casilla)
Gm 8 – 5/20 @ Coors Field –Seattle Mariners @ Colorado Rockies
Mariners win 6-4 (WP – Beavan, LP – Guthrie)
Gm 9 – 5/30 @ The Ballpark in Arlington – Seattle Mariners @ Texas Rangers
Mariners win 21-8 (WP – Beavan, LP – Holland)
Gm 10 – 6/3 @ Minute Maid Park – Cincinnati Reds @ Houston Astros
Astros win 5-3 (WP Lyles, LP – Arroyo, SV – Myers)
Gm 11 – 6/15 @ Tropicana Field – Miami Marlins @ Tampa Bay Rays
Rays win 11-0 (WP – Moore, LP – Zambrano)
Gm 12 – 6/22 @ Marlins Park – Toronto Blue Jays @ Miami Marlins
Blue Jays win 12-5 (WP – Romero, LP – Sanchez)
Gm 13 – 6/30 @ Turner Field – Washington Nationals @ Atlanta Braves
Braves win 7-5 (WP – Minor, LP – Strasburg, SV – Kimbrel)
Gm 14 – 7/6 @ Busch Stadium – Miami Marlins @ St. Louis Cardinals
Marlins win 3-2 (WP – Nolasco, LP – Westbrook, SV – Bell)