Day: August 4, 2004

A stadium by any other name

The Cardinals announced today that their new stadium will not be called Monsanto Field or Post-Dispatch Park or Casino Queen Stadium or [Help me out here, Tony. I need some more St. Louis companies to put here.].

For at least the next twenty years, the ballpark being built next door to Busch Stadium will be called . . . . Busch Stadium.

I don’t think anyone’s all that surprised. And while there’s no getting around the fact that it’s yet another corporate name, Busch Stadium has a couple of things going for it. It’s not just a corporate name, for one thing. It’s also the name of a prominenet family that’s been part of St. Louis for decades, and it honors August Anheuser Busch Jr. who more or less single-handedly saved the Cardinals for St. Louis in the 1950s. And it’s the same name we’ve been using for forty years. Consistency has some value. And finally, Busch Beer isn’t even Anheuser-Busch’s most popular product. We could have had something hideous like Tequiza Park.

This does, however, leave an opening. Tony, you need to start putting the pennies away so that in twenty years you can outbid Anheuser-Busch, giving us Custom Insurance Field. By then, maybe we’ll get to meet before games at the Pujols, Rolen, or Edmonds statues.

Original comments…

Jim: Steak ‘n’ Shake has always seemed like it should be a St. Louis company, although I think it’s headquartered in Indianapolis.

But I’m going to assume the new park narrowly missed becoming Schnucks Stadium.

Dan: I’ll meet you before the game at the Tommy Herr chapel and reading room.

Jason: I think in front of the new stadium there should be a beautiful fountain from which Natural Light should spew forth.

maura: dude, david lee roth totally tried that during the ‘a little ain’t enough tour,’ except his fountains were flowing with jack daniels (and iced tea in sheds located in dry counties).

my seats were too crappy to get near them. plus i was 16 and probably would have spit the jack out.

Call this an omen

When my alarm went off just now, the first three words I heard were the last three words of a news story: “…in Davenport, Iowa.” My first thought was, “If KFWB was going to do a story on our road trip, why didn’t they call me?” But really, I assume they were talking about the fact that both major Presidential candidates are there this morning.

The other half of this omen is that, when I went to the KFWB web site just now to verify their URL, one ad on the site read, “Arizona Office of Tourism wants to send you on a Road Trip!” Thanks, Arizona, but I’m already going on one, and you don’t really need to capitalize “road trip” there!

Original comments…

Levi: What must it be like to be in Davenport today? Crazy. Are the two candidates going to accidentally meet in a local diner and have a bare-knuckle brawl? I’m picturing the scene in _The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence_ where Liberty throws a steak on the floor and Tom Donothan orders him to pick it up. But in this case, there’s no Ransom Stoddard to intervene and prevent bloodshed. That’s okay. Kerry can take Bush in a fistfight any day.

Filling up one of the iPods

Another eBay purchase arrived today: the S.F. Seals “Baseball Trilogy” EP, purchased for a mere $2.00 plus shipping. Add this to some heretofore undiscovered baseball-related songs that I recently purchased from the iTunes Music Store, and we’re going to have quite the “baseball music” playlist. Among those songs: a 1948 Pittsburgh-centered version of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” a song about Ozzie Smith called “The Wizard of Oz” (of course), Belle & Sebastian’s “Piazza, New York Catcher” (finally), and Christine Lavin’s “Ballad of a Ballgame” (which is technically about softball, but it’s an amusing enough song that I’ll give it a pass).

Original comments…

Cushie: I don’t know if you’ve seen Belle and Sebastian since the album with Piazza, New York Catcher came out. I saw them a few weeks ago and it turns out that song now has a call and response section.

This was in London, so you can’t really assume that the crowd knew all about Piazza, but when the line “Mike Piazza, New York Catcher, are you straight or are you gay?” rang out, the synchonized response, in time to the music was “Gay!” I was highly amused.

Cushie: PS. Can you post your baseball playlist? Could either do an iTunes Mix or export it from iTunes so we can see what you’ve found.

Dan: Jim — it’s a capella, but Jonathan Richman has a lovely little thing about Walter Johnson (called.. “Walter Johnson”) on, I think, “You Must Ask the Heart”

“All through baseball, he was loved and respected. Was there bitterness in Walter Johnson? Well, it was never expected”)

Jim: I’ve got that Jonathan Richman song already. I can’t turn down the request of someone named Cushie, so I’ll post the full baseball playlist in a bit. (I can’t do an iMix, because not all the items are on the iTunes Music Store.)