Busch Stadium II Baseball Heaven | |
 Busch Memorial Stadium in 2005 | |
 Interactive map of Busch Memorial Stadium | |
| Former names | Civic Center Busch Memorial Stadium (1966–1981) Busch Stadium (1982–2005) |
|---|---|
| Location | 250 Stadium Plaza St. Louis,Missouri |
| Coordinates | 38°37′26″N90°11′33″W / 38.62389°N 90.19250°W /38.62389; -90.19250 |
| Owner | St. Louis Cardinals |
| Operator | St. Louis Cardinals |
| Capacity | Baseball: 49,676 (1997–2005) 57,676 (1966–1996) Football: 60,000 |
| Field size | Original Dimensions (1966) Left Field – 330 ft (101 m) Left-Center – 386 ft (118 m) Center Field – 414 ft (126 m) Right-Center – 386 ft (118 m) Right Field – 330 ft (101 m) Backstop – 64 ft (20 m) 1996 Left Field – 330 ft (101 m) Left-Center – 372 ft (113 m) Center Field – 402 ft (123 m) Right-Center – 372 ft (113 m) Right Field – 330 ft (101 m) Backstop – 64 ft (20 m)  |
| Surface | Natural grass (1996–2005) AstroTurf (1970–1995) Natural grass (1966–1969) |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | May 25, 1964; 61 years ago (1964-05-25)[1][2] |
| Built | 1964–1966 |
| Opened | May 12, 1966; 59 years ago (1966-05-12)[1] |
| Closed | October 19, 2005; 20 years ago (2005-10-19) |
| Demolished | November 7 – December 8, 2005 |
| Construction cost | US$24 million[1] ($233 million in 2024 dollars[3]) |
| Architect | Sverdrup & Parcel Edward Durell Stone Schwarz & Van Hoefen, Associated |
| General contractor | Fruin–Colnon/Millstone[1] |
| Tenants | |
| St. Louis Cardinals (MLB) (1966–2005) St. Louis Cardinals (NFL) (1966–1987) St. Louis Stars (NPSL /NASL) (1967–1974, 1977) St. Louis Rams (NFL) (1995) | |
Busch Memorial Stadium (Busch Stadium II) was a multi-purpose sports facility inSt. Louis,Missouri, that operated for 40 years, from1966 through2005.[4] Built as Civic Center Busch Memorial Stadium, its official name was shortened toBusch Stadium in January 1982.[5]
The stadium served as the home of theSt. Louis CardinalsNational Leaguebaseball team for its entire operating existence, while also serving as home to theNational Football League'sCardinals team for 22 seasons, from1966 through1987, as well as theSt. Louis Rams during part of the1995 season. It opened four days after the last baseball game was played atSportsman's Park (which had been renamedBusch Stadium in 1953, whenAnheuser-Busch bought the team). TheSt. Louis Stars of theNPSL and laterNASL played at the stadium from 1967 to 1974; the team later used the stadium for select matches up through the 1977 season.
The stadium was designed bySverdrup & Parcel and built byGrün & Bilfinger.[6]Edward Durell Stone designed the roof, a 96-arch "Crown of Arches".[7] The Crown echoed theGateway Arch, which had been completed only a year before Busch Stadium opened. Otherwise, it was very similar in appearance to other circular multipurpose "cookie-cutter stadiums" built in the 1960s and early 1970s in Atlanta, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh, all of which were essentially open-air copies of the HoustonAstrodome.
Its final event was the sixth game of the2005 National League Championship Series on October 19.[8] The stadium was demolished bywrecking ball in late 2005 and part of its former footprint is occupied by its replacement—the newBusch Stadium (a.k.a.Busch Stadium III), located to its south.
With new stadiums such as theAstrodome andShea Stadium,St. Louis felt the need to modernize. Many of these stadiums demonstrated modern feats ofengineering andarchitecture, but also demonstrated a transition occurring for the American public at the time—traditional to the cutting edge.[9] At the time of design, the Busch Stadium II was planned to be used for several purposes. The stadium was named Civic Center Busch Memorial Stadium.[10] Just weeks after opening, the new stadium hosted the All-Star Game, followed by a performance by The Beatles.[11] The landmark that distinguishes St. Louis' skyline, the Gateway Arch, was built across the street. To complement this historic landmark, the new stadium had 96 open arches on its roof.[12] As a testament to the design, Busch was one of the last built in the 1960s to be torn down. After serving the St. Louis Cardinals for 40 seasons, it was torn down in 2005.[12]
The baseball Cardinals had played atSportsman's Park since1920, originally as tenants of theSt. Louis Browns of theAmerican League.
The Cardinals had long since passed the Browns as St. Louis' premier team, and chafed at having the Browns as landlords. At least as early as the 1940s, the Cardinals had sought to build their own park. Longtime ownerSam Breadon had set aside $3 million to build a new park. However, he was unable to find any land to do so, and World War II put those plans on hold. By 1947, Breadon faced the prospect of having to pay a heavy tax bill on his stadium fund. Tax lawyerFred Saigh convinced Breadon to sell him the team, arguing this would save the Cardinals from this stiff tax burden.
When this tax dodge came to light in 1953 following an IRS audit, Saigh was subsequently charged with tax evasion, and pleaded no contest. Facing certain banishment from baseball, he put the team up for sale. Ultimately,Anheuser-Busch bought the Cardinals with the specific goal of keeping them in St. Louis.[13]
However, the Cardinals would have needed a new park in any event. Sportsman's Park had been built in its final form in 1909, and had not aged well. By 1953, even with the rent from the Cardinals, there was not nearly enough revenue to bring the stadium up to code, with city officials even threatening to have it condemned. With this in mind, soon after Anheuser-Busch bought the Cardinals, Browns ownerBill Veeck sold the park to the Cardinals, who heavily renovated the park and renamed it Busch Stadium, while Veeck relocated his team to Baltimore (rebranding it theOrioles).
By the late 1950s, however, the need for a new park could no longer be staved off. Sportsman's Park/Busch Stadium had almost no parking, and the neighborhood around it had gone to seed.
In 1958, Charles Farris, the city's head of development, proposed a new stadium downtown as the core of a plan to revive a 31-block area of the business district. The original design of the stadium called for a baseball-only format, but after the NFL's Chicago Cardinals moved to St. Louis at the end of the1959 season, becoming known as the football Cardinals in St. Louis, the design was altered to accommodate football as well: the football Cardinals would share Sportsman's Park/Busch Stadium with the baseball Cardinals.
With support from thelocal Chamber of Commerce, the Civic Center Redevelopment Corporation was established in September 1959, and it was given power ofeminent domain, which was used to condemn several areas that were rundown or had gone to seed years before, includingthe small Chinatown district, theGrand Theater (a historic opera house that had evolved into aburlesque strip club),[14] and various flophouses and abandoned warehouses.[1]
Groundbreaking occurred on May 25, 1964,[2] and construction took just under two years. The plan also included parking garages, theStouffer's Riverfront Inn, and office buildings.[1] A few years later, it also became the new home of the Spanish Pavilion from the1964 New York World's Fair.[15]
The stadium opened on May 12,1966, one month into the baseball season, asCivic Center Busch Memorial Stadium. However, the "Civic Center" part was rarely used, and most people called it simplyBusch Memorial Stadium.
The stadium's grass was replaced withAstroTurf in 1970.[16] St. Louis' notoriously hot summers made it difficult to keep the grass alive, especially when the football Cardinals insisted on practicing on the field during the end of the baseball Cardinals' season. The Cardinals retained a full dirt infield for eight seasons. A removable, sectioned Astroturf surface covered the infield during football season. The infield was converted tosliding pits when the surface was replaced for the1978 baseball season.[17][18] With artificial turf, the playing conditions at Busch Stadium were among the hottest in baseball,[19] with temperatures well above the local official readings.[20][21]
Anheuser-Busch (who owned the baseball Cardinals at the time) bought the stadium in 1981 for $53 million and removed the "Memorial" from the stadium's name, becoming simplyBusch Stadium; the price included the parking garages.[1]
Over the years, the grounds became home to bronze statues ofStan Musial,Enos Slaughter,Dizzy Dean,Rogers Hornsby,Red Schoendienst,Lou Brock,Bob Gibson,James "Cool Papa" Bell,George Sisler,Jack Buck, andOzzie Smith.[citation needed]
Following Busch's last 1995 event—the Rams' October 22 game before the opening of theDome at America's Center—the Cardinals retrofitted it into a baseball-only stadium. A large section of the upper deck outfield seats was closed, replaced with a hand-operated scoreboard and flags commemorating the Cardinals' retired numbers and World Series championships. The stadium's original natural grass field was restored, and the outfield walls were re-painted green from their original blue.[22]
Busch Memorial Stadium was originally slated to beimploded, like most modern-day stadiumdemolitions, to be able to finish construction on the new stadium in time for the2006 season. Due to fear of damaging the nearbyStadium MetroLink station, it was decided to tear down the stadium with awrecking ball, piece-by-piece, over the course of a few weeks.
Demolition of the stadium began at 3:07 p.m.CST on November 7 and was completed shortly after midnight on December 8, 2005.
Part of the footprint of the old stadium is occupied by the outfield of the new stadium. The Cardinals had planned to buildBallpark Village on the site of the stadium ($320 million for the first phase). It was to consist of boutiques and restaurants, condominium apartments anchored by the new headquarters ofCentene Corporation—all to be built in time for theAll-Star Game in2009.
None of the construction had occurred until groundbreaking ceremonies on February 8, 2013, and locals derisively referred to its rain-soaked unfinished status before that date as "Lake DeWitt"—after Cardinal PresidentWilliam DeWitt, Jr. In March 2009, the Cardinals announced the site would be used for a softball field and parking during the game.[23]
In its opening year, Busch Stadium hosted theAll-Star Game, a 2–1National League victory in 10 innings, mostly remembered for the humidity and 105 °F (41 °C) temperatures. The stadium hostedWorld Series games in six different seasons:1967,1968,1982,1985,1987, and2004. The Cardinals won the World Series in1967 and1982 while playing in the stadium (the seventh game of the 1982 Series was won at Busch). The 1968 and 2004 World Series were clinched in Busch Stadium by visitors: theDetroit Tigers in the seventh game and theBoston Red Sox in a four-game sweep, respectively.
The stadium was also the site ofMark McGwire's historic 62nd home run of the1998 season that brokeRoger Maris' single-season record, and also of McGwire's 70th of that season, for a record which lasted untilBarry Bonds surpassed it in 2001. The dimensions in the center and the power alleys had been altered from time to time over the years. Initially, the park was very favorable to pitchers, with spacious outfield dimensions. Consequently, its design (as well as the Astroturf surface) was favorable to the Cardinals' style of play for most of the time from the 1960s through the 1990s, which emphasized good baserunning and extra-base hits. Later changes attempted to make the outfield better balanced between pitching and power hitting.[18]
Before the 1996 season, the stadium was retrofitted to become a baseball-only stadium. Part of the top deck in center field was permanently closed, and in 1997, flags were put in place to honor the team's retired numbers and pennants.[24] Even before then, the stadium had come under less scorn from baseball purists than other cookie-cutter stadiums built during the same era, partly because the "crown of arches" gave it a more traditional look than its cousins and partially because it was alone amongst cookie-cutters in having field-level outfield seating.[18]
The baseball diamond was orientedsoutheast by east (home to center field); the new stadium is aligned east-northeast, the recommended orientation by MLB.[25]
Busch Stadium was also the home of theSt. Louis Cardinals of theNational Football League for 22 seasons, from1966 through1987.
The stadium was one of, and later the smallest, facilities in the NFL: while the NFL Cardinals played there, it seated 54,692 people, barely more than the NFL's minimum capacity of 50,000 (mandated in 1970). Various efforts were made to get a new larger stadium or expansion of Busch Stadium, but after these failed, Cardinals ownerBill Bidwill relocated the team toPhoenix, Arizona after the 1987 season.
The NFL Cardinals never hosted a playoff game during their 28 seasons in St. Louis, while the "Gridbirds" made only three playoff appearances during that stretch, losing on the road against theMinnesota Vikings in1974,Los Angeles Rams in1975, andGreen Bay Packers in1982. Despite this lack of success, they won thethird placePlayoff Bowl after the1964 season, upsettingVince Lombardi'sPackers 31–24 at theOrange Bowl inMiami.
Busch Stadium was also briefly the home of theSt. Louis Rams, who had relocated fromAnaheim Stadium inAnaheim, California. Due to completion of their new home stadium, the new and nearby Trans World Dome (later renamedthe Dome at America's Center) being delayed, the Rams played the first half of the1995 season at Busch Stadium: for these four home games, Busch Stadium seated 60,000 people.
The Rams played their last game at Busch Stadium on October 22, while the new indoor venue hosted its first NFL game on November 12, 1995.
Between the Cardinals' 1987 departure and the Rams' 1995 arrival, the stadium hosted two NFL pre-season games: one between theSeattle Seahawks and theNew England Patriots in 1989, and one between theNew York Jets and theKansas City Chiefs in 1991.
TheSt. Louis Stars, a professional soccer team, played at Busch Stadium for several years in the 1960s and 1970s. They were initially a member of theNational Professional Soccer League for one season in 1967 and moved to theNorth American Soccer League for their remaining seasons, which they split between Busch Stadium andFrancis Field. The team set their record attendance of 32,605 against theNew York Cosmos in 1977.[26][27] The Stars were relocated toSouthern California after the 1977 season after being unable to sign a new lease at Busch Stadium.[28]
The stadium also hosted international soccer. It served as the temporary home venue forTrinidad and Tobago in a1985 CONCACAF Championship match against theUnited States, who won 2–1 in front of 15,823 fans. The match was part of regional qualifiers for the1986 FIFA World Cup.[29]
The annualBronze Boot Game between theSaint Louis Billikens and theSIU Edwardsville Cougars was played at Busch Stadium from 1972 until 1985. The matchup saw record size crowds, including the all-time record attendance for a regular season college soccer match: 22,512 on October 30, 1980.[30]
Acts that performed at Busch Stadium include:
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