The Red Birds

It's real late (after 1:00 AM) so I'm going to be quick:

- We left our crummy hotel in KC this morning and crossed Missouri bound for St. Louis. We're staying at the Casino Queen -- "home to the loosest slots in the Midwest." It's a great deal -- a good price, a good room, and just on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River from St. Louis. There's also a metro stop connected to the casino that dropped us off right in front of Busch Stadium for tonight's game. On today's trip, we crossed the Mississippi River at the third place -- Vicksburg, Memphis, and now St. Louis -- and finally got a decent picture of 'big river.'

- Before heading in to the game, I had to drag Cristy to the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum. It was incredible -- there was a plethora of fascinating Cardinals memorabilia. My favorites: (a) three of the Cards' World Series trophies, including the 2006, (b) the National League champion trophy from 2004, (c) the actual jersey Grover Cleveland Alexander wore in Game 7 of the 1926 World Series and that famous strikeout of Tony Lazzeri to preserve a one run lead, (d) Enos Slaughter's glove from Game 7, the game of his "mad dash." The picture below is me with the 2006 World Series trophy. Everything was great, but it did make me a little sorrowful -- Granddad would have loved to talk about all this, especially the St. Louis Browns exhibit.

- We headed into Busch Stadium and were blown away. It's an absolute gem, with great food, great design, and stunning vistas at every turn. As far as feel, it reminded me of Cincinnati -- except done well. The second picture is me with a statue of 'the Rajah' Rogers Hornsby, the greatest right handed hitter of all-time (before Pujols and A-Rod at least).

- Our seats were in the first row of the second deck near the foul pole. During batting practice, Royals' closer Octavio Dotel was goofing around and throwing balls into the upper deck. He noticed us (I think because of my A's hat, Cristy thought for her Hispanic good looks) and threw a ball in our direction that sailed into the third deck above our heads. A few minutes later he had another ball and Cristy did one of those two finger whistles to get his attention. He threw it right to us on a line! I caught it bare handed while barely moving a step. And I'm not going to lie, I was awfully proud to catch it clean -- I can't imagine the feeling if I had dropped it into the lower deck. My hand stung for about ten minutes, but it was well worth it. The picture below is from our seats to give a sense of how far Dotel threw the ball. Quite impressive.

- The Royals pushed some runs across early and were able to hold on for the win (with a Dotel save!). It kept raining off and on -- it was mostly a drizzle, but enough that I had to hassle and put my scorebook away a few times to keep it dry.

So that's it. Tomorrow we'll be going to the arch and maybe the Budweiser Brewery -- and who knows, I might even talk Cristy into another game at Busch. On second thought, today's was too perfect -- we probably should just head home...