Entertainment

What It’s Like to Sit Behind Home Plate in Busch Stadium’s Green Seats

Published

2 months ago

April 3, 2024

click to enlarge COLLIN PRECIADO The green seats: Where the hot dogs are fancy and the views are first-rate.

“I have discovered in 20 years of moving around a ballpark that the knowledge of the game is usually in inverse proportion to the price of the seats.” – St. Louis Browns Owner Bill Veeck

When you go to a Cardinals game at Busch stadium, where you sit is very important. That importance has very little to do with how well you can see the field of play; very rarely have I ever gone to a baseball game to watch baseball (for those of you already shaking with rage, I get it, and I’m sorry).

No, a Cardinals game is an opportunity for showing off. It’s for having loud conversations about remodeling your bathroom to impress nearby strangers. It’s for flaunting your money clip to buy lava-hot Bud Lights. And it’s also for looking as glamorous as possible in your finest Ryan Ludwick jersey.

It’s a clout-off, and everyone is participating whether they know it or not, and no flex is bigger than how close your seats are to the batter’s box. The closer you are, the better you are; it’s as simple as that, and no seats are higher in status than the Cardinals Club seats, those high-profile green seats behind home plate.

They’re the kind of seats I figured I’d never get to sit in due to not having any money ever. But one day out of the blue I found out you didn’t actually need money at all to sit in that section. All you really need is a friend with an extra ticket who can’t find anyone else to go with him. I had such a friend, and as a matter of public service I decided to document my experience and report back to the Riverfront Times. Here’s what it was like to sit in the Best Seats in Baseball™.

After making your way through the main gate and the fancy closed-door Cardinal Club entrance, the green seat experience officially starts with a buffet. In our pretend post-COVID world, a buffet and its germ potential can still be slightly off-putting, especially when you still see people wearing masks at the grocery store. But if you’re already at an event full of tens of thousands of drunk people screaming and spitting on top of each other, what difference does it really make?

The website describes the buffet as upscale, which, I don’t know, I guess so. It’s hard to tell when everyone is wearing blue jeans. It was basically the food you would expect to see at a wedding reception. There were mashed potatoes, an underpaid worker wearing a chef hat serving slices of beef, and sushi being served on a naked Fredbird. Being that I didn’t come to a baseball game to eat things like mushroom tapenade, I quickly exited the dining room past a busy and fully-stocked bar, through a concrete tunnel, and out into what I assume is a diehard baseball fan’s field of dreams, just a few rows behind home plate.

Now I like baseball fine enough, and the St. Louis cityscape view for an evening sunset game is truly a beautiful sight to behold, but the best part about sitting in these seats is the free junk food and booze, which they bring to you directly in your seat. An attentive serving staff provides a lengthy list of life-shortening foods and drinks to choose from and you just point your increasingly greasy fingers at what you want and they bring it to you all evening long.

click to enlarge COLLIN PRECIADO These are not your everyday working man’s nachos, that’s for sure.

The menu is mostly standard sports concession fare, but with a lot of razzle dazzle. Like, the nachos on my visit weren’t just those yellow corn chips in a clear plastic tray with the thimble-sized cheese compartment. They were a full plate of chips smothered in beef, cheese, jalapeños, onions, tomatoes and a hefty scoop of sour cream. The same goes for the hot dogs. Of the three listed, one of them was an applewood-smoked bacon-wrapped monster topped with baked beans, fried tobacco onions and pornographic amounts of dijon aioli. They also had some okay buffalo wings, toasted cannelloni (but no toasted ravs — what is this, Chicago????), burgers and grilled chicken pita wraps, and veggie wraps and fruit cups for cowards.

I ate through most of the menu as if I were scheduled to be executed the moment the game ended. You never know if or when you’re going to get the opportunity to sit in this section again, and I wanted to consume as much of the experience as possible. By the seventh inning I was more or less in a paralyzed state of digestive distress as my body was trying to figure out what the hell to do with all the salt and fat I was forcing into it. I sat silently with glazed-over eyes, breathing heavily and vaguely aware of my surroundings, but with enough wherewithal left to order some peanuts and crackerjack because baseball.

The whole experience is such an assault on the body and senses that I’m a bit fuzzy on some of the details. I’m not even sure who the Cardinals were playing. I think it was one of those teams that you barely know exist. Like the Rockies. Or the Padres. Whoever it was, there were fireworks at the end so I think the Cardinals won.

My awareness was not granted any favors by the addition of the all-inclusive free booze aspect of the experience. The disturbing amount of food I was consuming prevented me from getting any sort of sustained buzz, but that didn’t stop me from trying with a few beers and a couple shots of Pink Whitney, a neon pink-lemonade vodka made exclusively for children. In the end all I accomplished was packing on a few hundred more calories and enhancing a carb-induced brain fog.

One of the few things I do vividly remember was David Freese, who was also at the game and sitting a few sections away. The crowd went bananas when they showed him on the Jumbotron, which he didn’t look particularly thrilled to be on. The reason for that became clear as people keyed in to where his seat was, and a parade of my fellow red-faced Cardinal fans made their way toward him to get selfies and tell him their much less exciting version of his game 6 heroics, something that I imagine has been his perpetual nightmare for the past decade-plus.
click to enlarge SCREENSHOT That’s the author right behind the B!

One of the more alluring aspects of the Green Seats that you definitely won’t find in the brochure is the honorary elite societal class status you’re granted for the duration of the game. This section is essentially in view for everyone in the stadium to be jealous of due to its proximity to the action, and the aisle attendants are even armed with crossbows to stop the have-nots from sneaking in. The section’s exclusivity is further emphasized by being on television for the majority of the game (I was behind the Bally Sports logo for a couple innings until the people whose better seats I had been squatting in showed up). You can’t help but feel superior to the peons elsewhere in the stadium in their normal poor people red chairs that I am usually sitting in myself.

As mentioned earlier, I used to think you had to be wealthy to sit in a section like this, but it turns out you just need to work for the right company. My friend who I came with knows someone who works for such a company. The people sitting around us did too. A bank. A major local grocery chain. No one had actually paid for their seats. At least, not in a traditional sense.

Companies offer these tickets to their employees as perks, but that money comes from somewhere. The cynic in me sees this as an opportunity for corporate executives to sneak in a few baseball games a year in luxury seating on the backs of their employees. The lower-level grunt might get to go to a game here or there, but Debbie in HR probably isn’t getting first dibs on a Friday night Chicago Cubs matchup. Personally I think I’d rather have the hundreds of dollars it cost to be there instead of a few hours of stimulation overload and a completely unproductive next day. Maybe it works some other way. Maybe those tickets are an investment used to land deals and woo potential clients. Maybe they’re the boss’ personal tickets. Or maybe that free hot dog isn’t so free after all.

What I’m trying to say is, if you work for a company that has these tickets and want to start some major shit at your office, demand transparency in who is going to what game. You might find out something pretty neat and/or coincidentally be fired for reasons unrelated to your inquiry before you can find out anything.

Go Cardinals!

Source link

Entertainment

Cicadas Are What’s for Dinner — But One Bug Lover Isn’t Happy

Published

5 hours ago

May 20, 2024

Natural Bridge

Last Friday, the Missouri Botanical Garden did something sure to shock the conscience of every good St. Louisan: They served up cicadas.The cicada scampi and spicy deep-fried cicada — yes, those were the actual dish names — were part of an cooking demonstration at MoBOT’s Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House, a fun afternoon inspired by the cicadapocalypse now blanketing a big swath of St. Louis County with the long-gestating bugs.But not everyone found the idea so fun. In fact, one local put it upon themselves to try to stop the culinary demonstration. In a series of emails forwarded to the RFT by one of the many (many!) people CCed on them, this lone cicada warrior sought to make the case that eating bugs was beyond the pale — not because they’re gross, but because they can feel pain just like any living creature. “I’d do anything to stop this awful destruction of our nature,” wrote the anonymous advocate. “They aren’t bothering me or anyone bc I don’t bother them and nobody else will unless we have manager of Butterfly House insisting on a cruel needless heartless eating them event. Cicadas are chill they like trees [sic], they’re like frogs croaking you just live with it they’re talking mating that’s nature coexist [sic] and they just here for a minute.” The writer added, “The cicadas are not insignificant they have such amazing process of thoughts and feelings I have pulled out from dog water bowl couple times and you see their appreciation they have the most tight amazing little grip with their teeny claws like he held on and they look right at you. They are beautiful intricate.” We’re not sure we’d use “beautiful” to describe the little buggers, but de gustibus non est disputandum. And we’ll grant the cicada-loving activist this: They certainly do have short life spans.Asked about the potential controversy, MoBOT spokeswoman Catherine Martin told us on Friday they have not heard from others who feel the same way. She also notes that MoBOT took steps to shield the insect ingredients from pain: “Cicadas will be euthanized humanely before being cooked. The team will collect the cicadas and put them in a freezer. Since they are cold-blooded animals, the freezer temperature causes them to fall asleep and then pass away without pain. We never cook cicadas while they are still alive.” Would that lobsters could say the same! It’s worth noting that factory farming causes far more pain to animals that are far more sentient than cicadas (and, obviously, some people have made it their life’s work to try to stop those practices). Some animal lovers have suggested insects may be a better solution than, say, our current practices involving chickens. Notes Martin, “Eating insects is a common practice worldwide. The UN estimates that 2 billion people routinely eating insects, and humans consume more than 1,900 species of insects as food. Insects as human food provide protein, vitamins and minerals and are vastly more sustainable than other animal protein sources.” One last note while we consider the cicada: If you’re allergic to shellfish, you may well be allergic to these insects, too, since they are in fact closely related. Forget their “teeny claws” — that might be a great reason to proceed with caution towards that supper of cicada scampi.
Subscribe to Riverfront Times newsletters.Follow us: Apple News | Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Or sign up for our RSS Feed

Source link

Entertainment

How Bob Cassilly Saved Michaelangelo’s Pietà

Published

4 days ago

May 16, 2024

Natural Bridge

Bob Cassilly played a profound role in reshaping the look and feel of St. Louis. The sculptor turned curator and creator of City Museum, Turtle Park, and many other beloved local installations remains one of St. Louis’ most esteemed residents more than a decade after his tragic death in 2011.

But before Cassilly became a visionary for a new urban landscape, he played just as significant a role in preserving one of the world’s most beloved masterpieces, Michaelangelo’s sculpture Pietà. While the media covered the incident at the time, it’s become a forgotten chapter in Cassilly’s remarkable life.

Named with the Italian word for “pity,” the Pietà depicts Mary cradling the body of Jesus in the aftermath of the crucifixion. Erected by Michaelangelo in 1498 and 1499, it was installed at St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City in the 1600s and has spent most of its days there ever since, becoming one of the world’s most venerated works of art.

On May 21, 1972, Cassilly and his new bride were visiting St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City as part of their honeymoon, an old-fashioned grand tour of Europe, he told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. As they approached Pieta, Cassilly saw a man with a long beard climb onto the sculpture. The man reportedly screamed about Jesus Christ and started desecrating the statue, smashing at Mary’s face and removing her hand with an implement that proved to be a geologist’s hammer, a fearsome tool with a long chisel head.

The man, Laszlo Toth, was a mentally ill Hungarian-born geologist who recently moved to Rome from Australia. According to reports by the Associated Press, Toth believed himself to be Jesus Christ and said that Mary was not his real mother.
click to enlarge Bystanders drag Laszlo Toth (right) away from the Pieta in St. Peters after he smashed it with a hammer. This photo was released by the Vatican the following day.

Cassilly was the first person to rush Toth and start to restrain him. He climbed the statue and grabbed at Toth’s beard. Cassilly punched Toth and brought his destruction to an end. “I leaped up and grabbed the guy by the beard,” Cassilly later told People Magazine. “We both fell into the crowd of screaming Italians. It was somewhat of a scene.” The young man from St. Louis’ courage inspired others to take down the hammer-wielding vandal.

Cassilly, Toth, and the others involved in the incident walked away with a few bruises, but the statue had suffered significant damage, both to Mary’s face and her left hand. Preservationists worked for years to restore Pietà to its original glory. The statue now sits in St. Peter’s Basilica behind bulletproof glass.

Toth was not charged with a crime but instead committed to a psychiatric hospital for two years. The Guardian reported that Toth later moved back to eastern Australia and lived in obscurity until his death in 2012.

Cassilly returned to St. Louis and opened a restaurant in Lafayette Park called Park Place, which he sold in 1978. Slowly but surely, he started earning commissions as a sculptor and began putting his own playful, historically-minded touches on the city’s landscape.

While Cassilly’s role in saving Pietà is surprisingly little known, it serves as an interesting and, in some ways, unsurprising footnote to his life’s work, which was seemingly forward looking and backward looking at the same time.

Source link

Entertainment

The Best Things to Do in St. Louis This Weekend: May 16 to 19

Published

5 days ago

May 15, 2024

Natural Bridge

Thursday 05/16

Skin Show In what has become a celebrated tradition for local lovers of boobs, butts and bawdy behavior (the four Bs!), the 13th Annual Show-Me Burlesque festival is bringing glitz, glam and a whole lot of ass to Cherokee Street this week. Though founder Lola van Ella no longer lives in St. Louis, she has made an indelible impression on the number of shaking ta-tas the city sees in any given year — and that’s a beautiful thing, in our book. This year’s three-day celebration will take place from Thursday, May 16 to Saturday, May 18 at the Golden Record (2720 Cherokee Street) and the nearby Casa Loma Ballroom (3354 Iowa Street). As is the case with these affairs, the festival promises “spectacular productions and fabulous burlesque, vaudeville, circus, and variety entertainment from every gender and from around the world,” according to promotional materials. The performers include the aforementioned van Ella, as well as Jeez Loueez, Auralie Wilde, Sailem and many more whose talents (among other things) will be on full display. The festivities kick off with an opening night bash at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday. Tickets range from $25 to $140 and can be purchased here at showmeburlesque.com/tickets.

Smooth Operation Those interested in the shinier things in life will find much to enjoy at the Saint Louis Art Museum’s (1 Fine Arts Drive) Shimmering Silks: Traditional Japanese Textiles, 18th-19th Centuries exhibit. Curated by Philip Hu, SLAM’s curator of Asian art, the exhibit features more than a dozen works that came to the museum as gifts or purchases over the last century, and celebrates traditional silk textiles from the 1700s through the 1800s. During that time period, SLAM says, “the main centers of traditional silk textiles in Japan were the old imperial capitals of Nara and Kyoto, supplying a clientele that included the imperial family, members of the hereditary nobility, feudal lords and ladies, high-ranking Buddhist clergy and the uppermost echelons of civil society.” The most lavish silks were used for imperial and Buddhist ceremonies, performances of Kabuki and Noh theater, formal wear and wedding costumes — so we’re talking about some high-quality stuff here. The exhibit will be on view during SLAM’s normal business hours through October 20, and admission is free. Details at slam.org.

Friday 05/17

Forget All Your Cares Outside of sporting events, there can be a dearth of large-scale gatherings in downtown St. Louis these days— let’s face it, many of the city’s biggest celebrations take place where the tallest buildings aren’t. But this week breaks that trend, as the City Social Block Party returns for its third year, throwing one of the biggest, best block parties in town in the heart of the city on Washington Avenue. The event will feature live music, food, drinks and games. It’s like the neighborhood party you might have on your street — except the damn whole town is invited. Wash Ave eateries such as Hot Pizza Cold Beer, Levels, Sugarfire and many others will be hosting pop-ups on the sidewalk, keeping everyone fed, while 4 Hands Brewery will be among the great vendors serving drinks. Tons of phenomenal music acts will take the stage at Washington and 14th Street, including Marquise Knox, DJ Mahf, Joanna Serenko and more. Best of all, the whole affair is completely free to attend. The good times start at 5 p.m. For more information, visit shorturl.at/vEKSU.

A Matter of Taste Get ready to celebrate everything that is great about the Maplewood and Richmond Heights food scenes this weekend at the 16th Annual Taste of Maplewood Street Festival. Held on Friday, May 17 from 6 to 10 p.m. and Saturday, May 18 from noon to 8 p.m., this big block party aims to bring neighbors together while also supplying a small sample of all the area has to offer. In addition to downing tasty bites from local restaurants, guests can stop by the tents at this free festival and do a little shopping. There will also be two stages set up with plenty of entertainment options — enjoy performances from Mattie Schell, the Chris Shepherd Band, Raised on Radio and more, or catch the St. Louis Irish Arts song and dance exhibition on Saturday afternoon. Visit midcountychamber.org for more information, including the entertainment schedule, details on where to park and a list of vendors scheduled to be on site.

Saturday 05/18

Outside(r) Art Bougie types may hold out for Clayton’s Saint Louis Art Fair, where artists have to apply and it’s hard to find a painting for less than $800. But if your tastes run to quirky, not fancy, you will find yourself happily at home at the Bevo BAZAAR-O, the wonderfully named yard sale/craft fair in Bevo Mill. Unlike some of the more uptight affairs in this town, there’s no screening of these vendors — they just pay $10 per parking spot at 5000 Gravois Avenue, set up a display of their crap and get to selling. Sure, that lack of overall quality control means you’re assuredly going to find some real junk — but also, who knows what kind of treasures lurk in south city? The event runs from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, May 18. Attendance is free. Details at shorturl.at/jBT67.

Sunday 05/19

One Last Hurrah Lo-Fi Cherokee said its goodbyes last month, as the low-key festival featuring a series of single-day music video shoots spent one last Saturday capturing a dozen local musical acts in and around Cherokee Street businesses. But because this is a music video festival, not a music festival, the fun isn’t really over until the videos premiere — and that makes this Sunday, May 19, the true end of the festival that videographer Bill Streeter started 14 years ago. Sob! Swing by Off Broadway (3509 Lemp Avenue) for the Lo-Fi Cherokee Final Premiere Party to see the results of Streeter’s day-long sprint and celebrate the community that’s sprung up around it. Oh, and you can catch some pretty good music videos, too. Doors open at 7 p.m. with the screening at 8 p.m. Tickets are $10. Details at lofistl.com.

Source link