Kevin's First Game

It was 1968. I was 9. This was the first of what would become many annual pilgrimages to Busch Stadium to see the Cardinals from our small Iowa town, population 6,600.

My allegiance was inherited from my Dad, who began listening to Cardinal broadcasts as a kid while bedridden with ricketts. In 1968, although the country swirled with racial ferment and war protest, my world was rosy. The Cardinals were the best team in baseball, led by Gibby, Brock, Cepeda and Flood.

Our family of six piled into our Chevy Malibu on a Saturday morning in June and headed for St. Louis, a six-hour drive. About 100 miles out, somewhere east of Columbia, Mo., we picked up KMOX. Even at 2 p.m., with the game still several hours away, the radio was abuzz with Cardinals talk. Harry Carey and Jack Buck took turns hosting pregame pregame shows. Always a great baseball town, St. Louis is all about the Cardinals when the team is winning. And despite the cynicism that surrounded most of society in those tumultuous days, this foursquare Midwestern city wasn't too jaded to go head over heels for its hometown team.

We got to our hotel, a mom and pop roadside joint called The Ivy. We checked in at about 3 p.m, took a short break, and drove downtown. My brother Kent and I were sitting in the back, leaning through the space in the front seats (in those days, hardly anybody wore seat belts) looking in awe as the St. Louis skyline came into view. (This seems quaint in retrospect, after years of visits to most major cities of the world, but at the time the closest thing to a city I had seen was Des Moines.)

And then we saw it--the arches of the facade peeking through the downtown buildings. "There it is!" Busch Stadium. Home of our heroes.

We arrived a little after 4 o'clock, three hours before game time, and the scene outside the stadium was already busy. Clusters of people wandered in the plaza; vendors hawked souvenirs; kids and Dads posed for pictures next to the Stan Musial statue. For my brother and I, weaned on scratchy late-night broadcasts, this was the sun in our universe. We were too excited to even talk.

We spent the next hour people watching, absorbing the atmosphere, and then went in and found our seats. I've heard many guys describe the feeling they had when they first viewed the interior of their particular baseball cathedral. It was the same for me. As we walked on the concourse toward our section, wedges of green were visible through the entryways. There's the pitcher's mound! The dugout!

We got to our seats. We were in rightfield, high up, a long way from home plate but who cared? We were in.

The Cardinals were playing the Giants. Gibson versus Mike McCormick, a lefthander who seemed to always give the Cards fits. Funny thing, I don't remember much about the game at all. Willie Mays made a great catch and the Giants scored a couple of runs. Then the rain came. It was the fourth inning or so.

The umpired suspended play and we settled in for a long delay. Although it was pouring, we were dry, seated under an overhang. My mom left us to get a snack and at the last minute I decided to follow her. I ran down the stairs and through the tunnel, into a maelstrom of adults milling around the restrooms and concession stands. I didn't see Mom but she had to be close by. I looked and looked. No Mom. Okay, back to our seat.

Wait, which tunnel was it? They all looked alike. I didn't have a ticket stub and couldn't remember the numbers on it. I picked a tunnel and ran through. This doesn't look familiar. Tried another. All the sections looked the same. I ran back out into the concession area, hoping I'd bump into Mom. I was lost.

For the next 30 minutes I wandered in and out of outfield sections trying to find my way back. Now I was really scared. Holding my transistor radio to my ear as I walked, I listened to Harry Carey doing interviews to pass time. I was crying.

An hour passed. Finally, the game was called. I had circled the stadium at least a couple times, not knowing exactly where to go or what to do. Now people were pouring toward the exits. I stood next to a doorway, holding on to the grated gates, bawling. Adults passed me looking concerned, but nobody stopped. And then, a miracle. A family from my hometown who happened to be at the game spotted me on their way out. All these years later, I'm still thunderstruck by this coincidence. In a stadium with more than four dozen exits, among 45,000 people, 300 miles from home, I was found by a family friend who didn't even know we were at the game.

I was reunited with my parents, who were understandably terrified. They hadn't seen me for more than 2 hours. Even though this was before the days of kids on milk cartons, I can't imagine the nightmare this must have been for them.

We spent the evening eating pizza, and I never once let my parents out of my sight. The next day, we went home. The Sunday game had been rained out.

But I went back the following summer, and the summer after that. The episode never tainted my desire to be at Busch or my love of the Cardinals. Last October, I was there, in standing room only, watching the World Series. And this fall, the stadium will come down to make way for a new, allegedly improved ballpark. A little piece of my childhood will go with it.