Rangers revenge! Game 1 of 2013 Road Trip.

6-21-2013

Texas Rangers vs. St. Louis Cardinals

Busch Stadium, St. Louis, MO

First Game of Road Trip.

I drove from Denver to St. Louis the day before stayed the night in St. Louis and headed downtown about noon for this 7:15 game. I got downtown and to the stadium area about 1:30 after a stop and bad directions from the hotels front desk guy. They never seem to know where to go. Same thing happened 2 years ago in Washington D.C. So since I had almost 6 hours before the game I decided to do a little urban hiking around St. Louis. I found a place to park a few blocks north west of the stadium and started heading towards the Arch located by the Mississippi River took some photos along the way.

This is the Old Court House with the Arch in background. There is a park with a lot of art work and fountains that spans a few blocks leading up to the court house. More photos of those in a bit.

I then got to the park where the Arch is located it is really interesting to see in person I have driven by it a few times but have never really stopped. The first time I saw it was when I was driving west when I first moved from N.Y. to Denver. I think I took a photo of it as I drove by or something. Here is a few i took while walking around the park.

After going by the Arch and the Mississippi River I headed over and checkout Busch Stadium.

This is a photo by the left field side of the stadium. It is where the team store is located and many statues of players from the history of the St. Louis teams. The statues include Enos Slaughter, Dizzy Dean, Ozzie Smith, Red Schoendienst, Stan Musial, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, “Cool Papa” Bell, George Sisler and Roger Hornsby.

Here are a few photos of the statues.

Stan Musial

Bob Gibson

“Cool Papa” Bell

Ozzie Smith

You can see behind the statue that they are building a new structure where the old stadium was located. This is the third Busch Stadium.

Along the walkways they have plaques in the ground commemorating different milestones in the team’s history, Including their 11 World Series Championships, Numerous National League Pennants, No Hitters and batting milestones such as Mark McGuire 1998 Home run race with Sammy Sosa.

Here is the one for the 1926 World Series win. I choose this one because this night he gave a way a commemorative stein.

 Here is a look at the walk way along the 3^rd base side. They also had them down the first base side side walk as well.

Also around the stadium in the brickwork they had many variations of the Cardinald logo Cardinals birds.

After walking around the stadium I decided to head back to my truck. I once again walked through the park with the fountain’s and art here are photos from earlier and this trip.

This is another look at the left field corner of the stadium from when I headed to the third base entrance to go into the stadium. It was still about an hour before the gates opened at 5:15. The gates at Busch Stadium open 2 hours before game time.

I headed back to the stadium to get ready to go in. I went to the third base entrance.

About 30 minutes before the gates opened I got in line.

After getting my Stein I headed out to left field for batting practice. The Rangers where batting and a few baseballs had already gone out there.

Here is a look of the in-field from between third base and the left field foul pole.

This is a look at the end of the seats. I always find it interesting the amount of detail that they put into this in most stadiums,

Not even 10 minutes into the stadium and I caught a ball hit by the Rangers. I am not sure who hit it but it was pitched by Ron Washington there manager who was throwing batting practice.

When batting practice ended I took a walk around the inside of the stadium to check it out.

These next 2 scoreboards were intresting I first looked at them and tried to figure out what they were. It was not of the games that happened or were happening this day.

Then I realized that they were the out of town scoreboards from the old stadium. This is from the National League games. There was another for the American league games.

The above is the one form the Cardinals game that day against the Reds. It was as they froze the day in time. The Rockies do the same thing at the end of the year they leave the out of town scoreboard as it was at the end of the last game of the season.

I decided to head up to my seat on the upper concourse. There were views of the arch from there also.

I walked around up there as well, here is a look from the right field side.

I noticed that at the top of the stadium they had the flags of all the teams in baseball and at the top of my section was the Rockies flag. Cool coincidence. They were in order of standings with in the division.

There were a bunch of first pitchers from people from different groups before this game this is the lead driver for the St. Louis Clydesdale Team representing Budweiser the sponsor of the nights Stein give away.

This is the view of the stadium and the St. Louis from my seat. It is why I sat there. It was the second to last row and had a great view. I took this photo many times during the night to get different looks as the sun set. You will see them scattered through the rest of this post.

This is the Cardinal starting pitcher ????? Lyons throwing in the first inning. He did not have a bad first inning facing 4 Rangers batters he did walk Elvis Anrus. He also struck out Andre Beltre to end the inning.

Derrick Holland started for the Rangers. He had a very shaky start. The Cardinals Matt Carpenter started with a double followed by a Carlos Beltran double scoring Carpenter. Matt Holiday walked.

Carpenter crossing home for the Cardinals first run of the game.

Yadier Molina was the first out in the inning he was the 5^th batter of the inning.

Allen Craig got thrown out at home on a David Freese hit for the second out of the inning. Beltran and Holliday also scored in the inning. (3-0) Cards. A.J. Piezynski started the 2^nd for the Rangers with a GRDB in left center.

 Matt Holiday was only able to watch as the ball bounced into the stands. The Rangers scored 4 runs in the 2^nd inning.  The rangers sent 9 batters up in the inning, besides the Piezynski GRDB Mitch Moreland also hit one down the left field line. (4-3) Rangers

Another look at the view beyond the outfield.

Tyler Lyons was taken out of the game in the second inning. Lyons would pitch only 1 2/3^rd innings. He was responsible for all 4 runs and 3 hits he walked 3 and struck out 1.

Joe Kelly would come into the game.

 Ian Kinsler who Lyons walked scored on a Cruz single. The first batter he faced. That was the fourth run that Lyons was accountable for.

Once again another view of the outfield.

The Cardinals did tie the game at 4 in the 2^nd inning Pete Kozma started the inning with a double and scored on passed ball from third.

Another Yadier Molina swing I seemed to get good shots of him, unfortunately he kept getting out on good photo this time he popped out to third in the 3^rd inning.

This is the last view of the outfield. After it got dark you were not able to see the Arch in photos anymore!

Jon Jay making contact in the 6^th inning. He did line out to second to end this inning. St. louis did not get another hit off Holland till the 8^th inning. After Holland settled down he pitched very well and kept the Rangers in the game. He pitched 7 innings. Letting up the 4 runs in the 1^st and 2^nd. He walked 3 and struck out 4.

Neil Cotts replaced Holland for the Rangers in the 8^th.

For the Cardinals Randy Coates came into pitch for the Cardinals with 2 outs and Adrian Beltre on first. Kelly pitched 5 innings giving up 5 hits and no runs he held the Rangers very well through these five inning.

Elvis Andrus hit a sac bunt in the 9^th for the Rangers moving Kinsler to second on the play and then Kinsler got to third on a wild pitch by Trevor Rosenthal who pitched for the Cardinals in the 9^th.

Andrus at first he got on base do to a Rosenthal throwing error to first.

Nelson Cruz hit a single that scored Kinsler and Andrus giving the rangers the lead (6-4).

Ian Kinsler crosses the plate for the Rangers 5^th run.

Elvis Andrus with the 6^th and final run for the Rangers.

Matt Carpenter walked with 2 outs in the 9^th for the Cardinals. Bringing Carlos Beltran to the plate.

Beltran flew out to left center to end the game. The Rangers took this game 6-4.

This was a nice stadium; I would probably go back to this one again. The area around the ball park is developing and is very nice as you saw with the nearby park. I did like the history of the team they had around the stadium including the scoreboards and statues.  The one thing that I did not like is it was not an open concourse like Coors and many other stadiums have. Their flex pricing kinda stinks and some game including this one are priced really high. $40 for the seat I was in. If I went a night earlier the seats were $20. Since it was only one game I really did not care as much about the price. If I was to go there regularly it would be very difficult to go to many games like I am able to at Coors. I do recommend if you have not been to Busch Stadium I would definitely recommend it.

The Rangers did go on and sweep the Cardinals in this series. I only went to this one game.

That is it from St. Louis I have another game in Columbus, Ohio after this as I make my way east to Boston for the 2 games the Rockies have against the Red Sox.

See You around.

You can also follow my 2013 baseball adventure on twitter. @roxaddict