St Louis Day 1

So this past weekend we took a trip to the Gateway to the West. That's right, we ordered our tickets for the best rivalry in Baseball - at least as far as Cubs/Cardinals fans are concerned. We bought our tickets when they went on sale - oh about 4 months ago. Little did we know then, that we had purchased tickets for the most exciting and HOTTEST (literally) baseball games I have ever been to. Don't get me wrong, I've been to many exciting, come from behind/walk off/blowout games at Wrigley Field. None of them were quite as exciting as these two games.

Let me reflect on the weekend as it happened...

I received a call from my brother last Wednesday while eating pizza at Al's Pizza (Warrenvilles finest pizza!). He just wanted to let me know that the Sunday game that he bought tickets to (he bought 6 tickets together so we could all sit together - The 3 brothers and their significant others) was changed to the Sunday Night Game of the Week! We had to choose - Do we watch one game this weekend in St Loius, try to sell the tickets, and drive home early Sunday - Or WATCH BOTH GAMES AND GET HOME EXTREMELY LATE SUNDAY NIGHT/EARLY SUNDAY MORNING. For me, there was no decision - we had the tickets, we had to watch both games. Most of us didn't have the option of taking Monday off work, so we would have to sacrafice.... After a few days of pondering and checking our options for selling the tix, we all decided to go for it!

So we get up at the crack of dawn, pack up the car and go! We get to St Louis with about an hour to spare, just enough time to do a little tailgating under I64. Good thing my bro forgets the grill - we get to have a liquid lunch, not the best thing for a 100+ degree day. Luckily our seats happened to be in the shade, because it was seriously the hottest day I can remember. We stopped at a gas station on the way, a man told us that Busch stadium was the hottest stadium he had ever been in "It holds the heat well". Wonderful! We were sweating as soon as we stepped out of the A/C'd van, now we had to sit in "the hottest stadium" for an afternoon of Cubs/Cardinals baseball. Now history has told us that the Cubs had little chance to win either of these games we were about to enjoy. My siblings went to a game last year in St. Louis and after the Cubs lost the game, they said the walk back to the car was one of the worst experiences ever. "The Cardinal fans were brutal". Not sure why they wanted to go back, but here we were. The game was hot, very, very, very hot. The shade was great, I don't think we would have made it in the sun. The beer was good, although I did have to walk a few sections to get a Budweiser. Guess people really like their Bud Light down there. The game was great, the Cubs took an early lead and kept it after the Cards would battle back every time the Cubs would score. Derrek Lee hit a home run and Aramis Ramirez hit a home run in the 6th inning to put the Cubs up by 2 runs;the bullpen allowed 1 run and Dempster closed the game with a save.
Excellent close game. Final play - Albert Pujols hits a hard line drive to Neifi Perez who then tosses to Todd Walker for a double play to end the game! Very close play, Cards would have tied the game had the hit gone through the infield. AWESOME!

We drove to the hotel checked in - unpacked and cleaned up for dinner. Went to Show Mes for dinner, based on a recommendation by a friend. Probably the biggest Hooters rip off ever - its a wonder how they can even get away with it. The wings were very similar to Hooters too, can't really say I liked them better, or say they were worse. Seriously, I think whoever started Hooters had some background in starting this place. Finished off the night playing cards - no poker - but a fun game called "Hand and Foot" or something like that. Pretty fun game, we played until we were too tired to carry on.

End of Day 1. Not enough time to finish this up today. More to follow...

Waj