Last Saturday afternoon, I was going to watch the Cardinals take on the Rockies at Busch and stopped to watch a vintage baseball game that was played underneath the Arch. The first of five scheduled games, the RSG Squirrels, of Decatur, played the West Lafayette Couriers in an exciting match, using the 1860 rules. I had originally thought that the Cards were playing in the evening and I was going to get to watch vintage baseball all afternoon but I discovered that Saturday was an afternoon game and I only got to see most of the one game. It was kind of a shame because it was a beautiful afternoon, a beautiful place to play a match (as can be seen from the above photos) and I could have sat in the park, underneath the Arch and watched this for hours.
While I didn't get to see as much as I wanted, it was a great deal of fun. Everybody on the clubs that I talked to were very friendly and you can tell that they enjoyed educating folks about their game. For that matter, I had a lot of fun talking about the game as it was played in 1860. Random people would come walking by and just stop, amazed at what they were seeing and wanting to know what the heck was going on. They loved it. You can tell that the game just captured everyone's imagination and that was encouraged by the obvious fun that the players were having.
It was a great afternoon in St. Louis. You had the vintage games under the Arch and, as we were walking to Busch, there were groups of people, here and there, playing catch. There were 43,000 people at the ballpark and Adam Wainwright took a no-hitter into the 8th, throwing a two-hit shutout as the Cards secured a 3-0 victory. The sun was shining, the beer was cold, the Cardinals were winning. This is what life is like in the best baseball city in America. It was a perfect baseball day and I honestly felt sorry for all the baseball fans in this country who don't live here and don't get to experience baseball the way that we do.
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