I had been wanting to go and see a game at this park ever since the day it opened its gates. Well, Friday night I got the chance to see my first game at the new Busch Stadium, and I loved every second of it. What a park! It all starts with the exterior of Busch Stadium. When walking up to the park, I could not help myself from becoming mesmerized by the incredible, brown brick exterior of the stadium. Now I know that when some one says “The brown bricks on that building were amazing,” that doesn’t seem all that exciting. But really, the exterior of this stadium is my favorite of any park I have been too, and that’s saying something.  While still outside the stadium, make sure to go and check out the different statues located along the west side of the park. There is a small area with statues of players such as Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and many more. The interesting part about these statues is that they are all smaller than the normal statue that you are used to seeing outside of most pro sports stadiums. If you continue walking toward the home plate entrance along the outside of the west side of the park, you will come across a full-sized statue of Stan Musial, which is really cool. After seeing the whole exterior of the stadium, I could not wait to get inside. The concourses here are fairly wide and allow for people to walk around the park comfortably. However, they could be a bit wider. Also, the playing field is not visible while in the concourse, which I was not too happy about. I like to be able to walk around the park in the concourse and still be able to see the game/field. The concourse opens up into an open air walkway behind the left field bleachers where you can get some pretty cool views of the park looking towards home plate. Once in your seat, you can really start to take in the scenery. One of the first things I noticed was just how massive the place is. Other parks like Camden Yards or AT&T Park are more compact and not so huge. I personally don’t have much of a preference, but I thought the size of Busch Stadium was pretty amazing. While in your seat, especially if you are sitting along the first base line or behind home plate, you get an amazing view of the St. Louis skyline beyond the left/center field stands. It is quite the sight. All of the seats at Busch Stadium are Cardinal red, for obvious reasons. The reason I am mentioning this is because sometimes stadiums with red seats don’t look so great. Bush Stadium, however, was able to pull it off and make the red seats a part of the overall attractiveness of the park. In right field, there are two scoreboards that provide you with statistics on the batter, pitcher, and  both teams, as well as other game scores from around the league. The scoreboard on the left also shows replays and video clips. As for the atmosphere at Busch Stadium, I would give it a “B.” St. Louis has always been said to have possibly the best baseball fans in the MLB. They draw over 3 million fans pretty much every year, and on most nights almost the entire stadium is full. The reason I am not giving its atmosphere an “A” is because the fans were not always paying much attention to the game, even during some of the most important times. On numerous occasions, including the 8th inning with the score tied, people were trying to start “the wave,” which I cannot stand. This was by far the biggest flaw that I witnessed throughout the game. Pushing that aside, Busch Stadium very much impressed me. I had high expectations heading into my trip to see the park, and it definitely lived up to those expectations. I would HIGHLY recommend seeing a game here if you are a baseball fan.

To see my reviews of the other 16 stadiums I have been to, click here.