Fans in the stands, Arenado homer and win highlight Cardinals’ return to St. Louis
The first thing inside the ballpark that was different was that everything smelled like onions.
After a truncated 2020 season in which no fans were allowed to watch the St. Louis Cardinals from inside the confines and Busch Stadium and therefore no food needed to be prepared outside of the stray bags of chips left out for members of the media.
On Thursday, with a now-sellout crowd of 13,328 in the building, demand was quite a bit higher. Bratwurst was back on the menu.
“I think the biggest difference was when I was just sitting in my office early this morning, and just seeing people outside,” Cardinals President of Baseball Operations John Mozeliak said before Thursday’s first pitch. “It was a far different vibe than what we experienced last year, so that’s exciting. And, obviously, a different level of energy than we experienced last year.”
Some of that energy came in subtle doses — trills of organ music where previously there were only the same dozen or so pop songs, videos of fan participation games on the scoreboard, chattering fans grousing about the things people tend always to grouse about at ballgames.
Some was less subtle, like when Nolan Arenado charged a 373-foot bolt into the left field seats for a game-winning home run and subsequent curtain call in his first home game as a St. Louis Cardinal.
The noise that arose felt thunderous, and sounded like it could replicate that which would come from a crowd three times its size.
That, in part, comes from attunement to stadium sounds being more than a little out of practice.
“There was extra little added adrenaline in there,” Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright said. “You know, the fans, you just can’t ... you can’t replace that.
“Maybe it’s just because we’re just used to nothing, but I really felt like our fans, like, overproduced as far as being loud and obnoxiously raucous and just awesome, you know, as far for cheering for their home team. I mean, it was just really cool.”
Some of Thursday’s moments will never be repeated. A memorial video to Cardinals legends Lou Brock and Bob Gibson, each of whom passed away in the fall, won’t be a part of another opening day.
Wong, Flaherty, Cardinals Hall of Famers
Nor will Kolten Wong, back with the Brewers after nine seasons in St. Louis, standing on the top step of the visiting dugout and whistling pieces of bubble gum at his former teammates as they ride in the introductory parade. And then Wong again, drawing a four pitch walk through tears, overcome by the emotions of returning to the only professional baseball home he’d ever known.
Cardinals starter Jack Flaherty partnered with the Boys and Girls Club of St. Louis and local, Black-owned bookstore EyeSeeMe to donate thousands of books to children in need. Matt Carpenter, mired in an interminable slump, showed up on the field early to take ground balls at first base after being pressed into service due to a Paul Goldschmidt back injury.
Cardinals Hall of Famers were forced to stand at the batter’s eye in centerfield, a safe distance from the playing surface, so Ted Simmons could shake long, silver hair out of his eyes and Scott Rolen could throw a first pitch down to Arenado on the field.
And then, again, there’s Arenado’s blast.
‘It went to a magical place today’
“Baseball’s, for me and for a lot of people paying attention, is just a magical game,” Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said in Thursday’s postgame press conference. “It went to a magical place today. Just storybook.”
Both the financial and chronological commitments to Arenado are, from a Cardinals perspective, reason to believe that Thursday’s heroics are far from the last in what the team hopes will indeed be a storybook second half of a career which started in Colorado and, if Wainwright is to be believed, may well end in St. Louis because Arenado himself engineered his arrival in town.
Some of the changes that resulted from the onset of the pandemic are likely more temporary. The seats, certainly, will be filled to capacity again in the future. The new touchscreen concession system, while convenient for ordering, will have to be altered if the disbursement of food isn’t improved (tip: hang on to your receipt until you have chicken fingers in hand). Face masks, enforced gently throughout the park, will someday be a relic, even if they offer comfort on a blustery April day.
Thursday felt more like normal
Familiar faces were back in the park on Thursday. Staffers who fulfill important (or, admittedly, symbolic) jobs were missing in 2020 and are at their posts in 2021. The air at the stadium is moving, not oppressively still. It feels a bit more like it used to.
At many points on Thursday, Busch Stadium seemed to be as it always is on a cool day in the middle of the week early in the season — partially filled with people who are joyous in their harmless guilt, sneaking a secret baseball game with a couple ten thousand co-conspirators.
2020 was empty, in so many ways. 2021 carries the smell of promise to a fan base — to people — who need it more than they perhaps ever realized they could.
