Busch Stadium II

Ninety-Six Arches

Just below the roof, Busch Stadium II carried ninety-six open arches, giving the stadium a more traditional look compared to other cookie-cutter venues of the era. Sverdrup & Parcel and Associates designed it, with Edward Durell Stone as design collaborator, and it opened on May 12, 1966, with the Cardinals beating the Atlanta Braves 4-3 in twelve innings. That opening year also brought the All-Star Game — a 2-1 National League victory in ten innings, mostly remembered for 105-degree temperatures.

The park was conceived as the core of a downtown redevelopment plan proposed by Charles Farris, the city's redevelopment chief, to revive a declining business district. It was originally planned as baseball-only, but the design changed to accommodate football after the NFL Cardinals moved to St. Louis at the end of the 1959 season. The building that opened in 1966 was a compromise from the start — planned for one sport, built for two. Anheuser-Busch bought the stadium in 1981 for $53 million and dropped the word Memorial from the name, leaving it simply Busch Stadium.

The Field Turns Back

For more than two decades the place ran on artificial turf and hosted two sports. Then, following the 1995 season, it was retrofitted into a baseball-only facility. A large section of upper-deck outfield seats was closed off, and a hand-operated scoreboard went in — 17 feet high by 270 feet wide, set in center field. Natural grass came back. The diamond had always been oriented southeast by east from home plate to center, and now the ground around it belonged to one game again.

The 1998 season brought Mark McGwire's 62nd home run — the one that broke Roger Maris's single-season record — and later his 70th, both hit in this building. By then the arches were still above, the grass was real, and the scoreboard needed hands to run.

One Game

Before the retrofit, before McGwire, there was 1985. Game 5 of the National League Championship Series, Cardinals and Dodgers. Ozzie Smith — a shortstop who had never hit a home run left-handed in his career — hit one into right field to win it 3-2. Jack Buck urged the crowd to go crazy, and St. Louis advanced to the World Series.

The park stood in downtown St. Louis from 1966 until it closed after the 2005 season.

Reporting: Wikipedia, Baseball Almanac, Ballparks of Baseball. Park data: MLB StatsAPI and Retrosheet, via the Fever engine.