Busch Memorial Stadium

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Lore & Background

The baseball Cardinals had played at Sportsman's Park since , originally as tenants of the St. Louis Browns of the American 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 owner Sam 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 lawyer Fred 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. 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 owner Bill 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 the Orioles). 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 the 1959 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 the local Chamber of Commerce, the Civic Center Redevelopme

In Their Own Story

Groundbreaking began on May 25, 1964, following a city plan to revitalize downtown that included condemning local areas like the historic Grand Theater. The project was driven by the need for parking and modern facilities after the NFL's Chicago Cardinals moved to St. Louis in 1959, altering the original baseball-only design. Construction took just under two years, creating a complex that also housed the Stouffer's Riverfront Inn and office buildings. Over the decades, bronze statues of legends like Stan Musial, Bob Gibson, and Ozzie Smith lined the grounds. In 1995, following the Rams' departure to the new Dome at America's Center, the Cardinals retrofitted the venue into a baseball-only stadium by closing upper deck seats and restoring natural grass. The final demolition began in late 2005, with the site later partially occupied by the new Busch Stadium (Busch Stadium III) and eventually Ballpark Village.

Reader's Guide

The stadium's grass was replaced with AstroTurf in 1970. 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 to sliding pits when the surface was replaced for the 1978 baseball season. With artificial turf, the playing conditions at Busch Stadium were among the hottest in baseball, with temperatures well above the local official readings. 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 simply Busch Stadium; the price included the parking garages. Over the years, the grounds became home to bronze statues of Stan Musial, Enos Slaughter, Dizzy Dean, Rogers Hornsby, Red Schoendienst, Lou Brock, Bob Gibson, James 'Cool Papa' Bell, George Sisler, Jack Buck, and Ozzie Smith. Following Busch's last 1995 event—the Rams' October 22 game before the opening of the Dome 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.

Did You Know?

• The stadium's roof featured 96 arches, echoing the Gateway Arch, which had been completed only a year before Busch Stadium opened.
• The St. Louis Stars of the NPSL and later NASL played at the stadium from 1967 to 1974, and used it for select matches up through the 1977 season.
• The stadium was originally named Civic Center Busch Memorial Stadium, but the 'Civic Center' part was rarely used.
• The final event at the stadium was the sixth game of the 2005 National League Championship Series on October 19, 2005.