Ballpark quest - 60 ballparks

  I’m enamored by the stories of Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig, of whether Shoeless Joe Jackson really tried to throw the Series, and whether Ty Cobb was as much of a jerk as his reputation. But I’m also fascinated by their contemporaries who didn’t get a chance to play in the majors simply because they were Black. That’s one of the reasons we went to the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum today. In 2020, MLB officially declared that the various top Negro Leagues of 1920-1948 were “major leagues.” This seems appropriate, given that the best Negro League players of the day often competed with the best of the white players of the day in exhibitions and winter leagues, and all accounts suggest they were comparable (the museum has lots of stories about that). While it’s easy to say that the Negro Leaguers were Major League good, it’s harder to say how good individuals were compared to individuals in the white majors, because the schedules and the fields weren’t the same at all, and even the ...

The stadium: I've always liked Kaufmann Stadium, even though I'd never been inside before today. It’s got fountains and waterfalls behind the outfield, and a big crown at the top of the scoreboard that is easily visible from Interstate-70 nearby. In fact, as I was walking into the stadium today, I realized that this stadium might be one of the reasons I've wanted to do this trek to baseball parks. I’ve driven past it on I-70 many times, and wished I could go to a game here. The stadium was built in 1973, so it’s probably best compared to the stadiums of the 1960s, and of those, St. Louis’ Busch II, with the Arch visible over the arches, is probably the only one that can compare. It may be on its last legs, though. While the stadium is still beautiful, and seems to be well-maintained, even the fans we talked to today are talking about whether there will be a new stadium. One of the things that is very 1960s about the stadium is that it is out in the suburbs (Independence...

  St. Louis is a baseball town. I realized that the day after we moved to St. Louis in August of 1979. It was late in the season, and the Cardinals were going nowhere, but when I went to turn in the U-Haul we’d rented, the two women behind the counter were discussing the previous night’s game, which they’d both listened to on the radio. I found that unusual both because it was a late-season game in a forgettable season, and because when it’s two women behind the desk, particularly in 1979, you didn’t expect them to be discussing sports. This is, so far, a very forgettable season for the Cardinals. Despite high hopes, they’re in last in their division, but their average home attendance is the second highest in the majors. That’s not too surprising, in that teams that are good year after year tend to have the highest attendances (unless they play in Tampa Bay). But the reaction to mistakes on the field seems to be shakes of the head, rather than boos, though I heard a few tonig...

  St. Louis has a tradition of giving successive baseball stadiums the same name, Busch Stadium, just as France had a tradition of naming all its kings Louis (like the namesake of the city, King Louis IX). The Cardinals have been playing in Busch Stadia all my life, I’ve been to all three of them, and have a special feeling for each of them. I’m also fascinated by the twists and turns that led to there even being a Busch Stadium in the first place, what one might call the Arch of history. Busch III: The current stadium is a great park. One of the features I like is the various logos of the Cardinals through time scattered around the stairwells to the upper deck, tied to years they won the World Series. The Cards have won the World Series 11 times, more than any team other than the New York Yankees, and like any franchise, their logo has changed in subtle ways over the years, although it has always had the intertwined “StL” and they’ve usually had the two birds on a bat on the...