New Thing #50 - A Race and a Tour

Today I went down to the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure and then took a tour of Busch Stadium. My nieces, Charlee and Remi, had raised money for one of their teachers, Miss Witte, to run in the Race. Megan (Miss Witte) and her brother were running in memory of their mother, and the girls really wanted to come and cheer her on.

Early this morning, way earlier than I normally roll out of bed on a Saturday, we got up and headed to the MetroLink to head downtown. Everyone and their mother also decided to take the Metro. We had picked the station where the Metro started from, so we thought we'd at least maybe get a seat. Nope, we picked a train that had already been filled with people. It wasn't too bad when we first got on though. We had to stand, but we had room to move and groove. Each subsequent stop after that though, more and more people tried to squeeze on. The best was when there was no room to even get the doors open and people thought they could squeeze onto the train. Uh, not today my friend. You need to wait for another train. It was one of those days where you were glad you wore deodorant and hoped everyone else did too. There were a few not so friendly people who thought they had the right of way, but for the most part, it was a pleasant trip. Except when Charlee or Remi would ask: "How many more stops before we get to ours?"

When we finally made it downtown, we had a few minutes to walk around while the race got underway. There were rows and rows of bottled water, bananas, apples and other yummy treats to revive the runners. A mobile yogurt stand, St. Louis Bread Co., Fuze and dozens of other vendors littered the streets. It wasn't long after we got there that we decided we should probably find a place to stand near the finish line so we could be ready for Megan. We were at the very end of the finish line, right next to an arch of pink balloons. We thought we had found a pretty good spot, until more and more people decided to stand in front of us. For the time being, we thought we were okay. Shortly after we got situated, the first few people started to trickle in. Damn, those guys must have been truckin' it to finish the 5K in under 12-15 minutes. I got really emotional seeing all those people running and supporting their loved ones who have fought breast cancer. It was a beautiful thing. If I was actually a runner, I'd love to run in honor of my Aunt Dorothy, a breast cancer survivor. But, it does involve running, and we've already established that I run like a bear thrashing around in the woods.

There were a ton of people there! This is only a small snippet of the crowd.

Cool shot of the flag with the Arch in the background.

A crapload of water.

And a crapload of nanners.

Some guy with a random bird in a cage strapped to his back. Weird.

For the first 10 minutes or so that we stood there, the people coming across the finish line were just trickling in. Then, as more and more time went by, the amount of people coming across the finish line kept doubling and tripling. I've never met Megan before, so I had no idea what she looked like. She did say she'd be wearing a pink bandana, but we expected to see a ton of those. Fortunately, there were less than a dozen that we saw. Megan ended up calling us when she thought she was near the end, so we stood in anticipation. We waited, we waited, but still saw no one in a pink bandana. Then a few mintues later, she called again and said she was almost finished. So, we waited and waited again. Then, this horde of people surged towards the finish line, and Shawn, my brother-in-law, happened to see her as she ran past us.

She finished just under 37 minutes, which was a personal best for her, and Charlee and Remi were really excited to see her finish. We didn't take up too much of her time, since she looked like she needed a gallon of water, a cold shower and a nap. But, I have to give it to her, she did what I couldn't do, and she ran it the whole time. Kudos to her. After we left her, we walked around a bit more and then headed a few blocks away to Busch Stadium.

Remi, Miss Witte and Charlee.

I've obviously been to the Stadium before, the old one and the new one. I love going to Cardinals games. But, I've never really seen much of the stadium, other than where I've gotten tickets for. So, I wanted to take the tour and see some things up close and personal that you're not allowed to see during games. We had a little time to kill before our tour began, so I perused the Team Store. You can easily drain your bank account there. Between the number of clothes, hats and other trinkets, it's a Cardinals fan's dream store. I ended up with a tank top, because I decided I needed something cooler to wear to summer games. I almost walked out with a T-shirt for my 14 month-old niece that said "St. Louis Cardinals - Itty Bitty Fan Club." It was flippin' adorable. But, when it cost more than my tank top, I decided Macks would just have to make do with the other Cardinal shirt I bought her for Christmas.

Once it was our turn for the tour, we went into the Stadium at Gate 5, right behind the bleachers. Joe and Mary, our tour guides, took our tickets and told us we could use our ticket stub for 10% off merchandise at the Team Store. Crap. I wish I had known that before I bought my tank top. Hopefully they would let me get a refund on the discount later. We had a random mix of people on our tour, a group of guys on a bachelor party that looked like they had had a rather rough night, some people from Boston and Alaska and others from St. Louis. The guy from Boston was pretty annoying any time the tour guide mentioned our Championships. He kept asking about 2004. So, some of the bachelor party guys put him in his place by asking just how many Championships the Red Sox had.

Joe, our tour guide. He looks like he's meditating or giving a sermon.

We spent some time talking about Old Busch vs. New Busch and where the new one overlapped the old one. Then, we headed up to the Champions Club, one of the party rooms where you get the all-you-can-eat-buffet and drinks included in your ticket. What I didn't know is that when the Stadium was first built, they had made 9 separate rooms to signify the 9 World Championships the Cardinals had. Well, of course, the first year in New Busch, we won our 10th. So, rather than trying to make another room out of what they had, they completely remodeled everything and made the 9 rooms into one large party room. It's pretty snazzy. You can sit in the A/C and watch the game on the dozens of tvs, grab some grub, or even sit on some comfy couches and watch other games on the flat screens. Or, you know, if you actually want to watch the Cardinals game, you can walk out of the club and go find your seats.

Swanky Champions Club.

We also checked out the Redbird Club and the Bank of America box. These are also places where you can come in out of the hot sun and grab some food and drink. The Bank of America Club is not all-inclusive though. You have to pay extra for the food. But, you get more variety than just hot dogs and nachos. Joe took us to the entrance with Stan Musial's statue and gave us a bit of history about him and the architecture of the stadium. If you've ever been the stadium, you've probably noticed the iron arches throughout. Those are reminiscent of the Eads Bridge, the first bridge across the Mississippi River.

Next, we headed to the announcers room, and it's actually a bit smaller than I thought. But, according to Joe, it's 10 times larger than what the visiting team gets to announce from. The cool thing is that the windows open so that the announcers can see, hear and even smell everything going on below them. What I thought was hilarious is that there were a few chairs in the front, along with a Pilates exercise ball. I wonder which announcer sits on that during games!

A view of the field from the announcer's box.

Told you there was an exercise ball in there!

We finally headed down to the field, but we stopped first in the Cardinals Club. This is an upscale restaurant beneath the stadium that leads to the green seats surrounding home plate. I've had the opportunity to sit in those green seats once in my life, thanks to my uncle and his company's box seats. When I was there with him, we didn't get to the game in time to eat in the restaurant, but we did have our own waitress in the seats who brought us all our food and beverages. It was awesome. But those green seats cost around $200-$250 a game. Can you imagine how much that must cost to buy season tickets? And you can't just buy one seat either. Good lord, that's a ton of money.

In the Cardinals Club, right before walking out to your seats, there are relief sculptures in the wall depicting the different Cardinals used over the years on the jerseys. It was pretty cool to see the difference in the 20s vs. now.

The different birds.

Finally, we were able to walk out to the field, but we had to stay on the warning track. Besides the grass being incredibly "fancy" and expensive to maintain, it has a ton of chemicals on it to make it look pretty and green all season. The Cardinals don't want a lawsuit from someone touching the grass and then getting sick. We were able to take pics near home plate, and then we got to see the visitor's dugout. They were doing work on the Cardinals dugout, so we couldn't see that. I would have liked to have seen the bullpen too, but no such luck.

The Schultz clan.

In the visitor's dugout.

While everyone was walking around and taking pictures, I noticed one of the bachelor party guys over against the wall behind home plate. The closer I got, the more I realized that he didn't look so good. And that he was throwing up. On the warning track. At Busch Stadium. Seriously? Not cool dude. I can not believe he did that. I guess it was better than on the floor somewhere. But, still, not cool. I'm glad he was finished before I got too close, or I would have felt some upchuck impulses myself.

At this point, our tour had lasted a little over an hour, so it was time to go. We all had fun. We got to see some things we wouldn't normally get to see when attending a game. And from now on, when I watch games on TV, I'm going to try to see if any of the announcers are bouncing up and down on that exercise ball! Oh, and I was able to get my 10% off my tank top after all. :)