ST. LOUIS _ For the first time in our St. Louis baseball lifetime, we can have our gooey butter cake but can't eat it. We get to watch the games, but we can't go experience the games. In 2020, it's baseball at a distance.
To paraphrase James Earl Jones' "Field of Dreams" character: "This field, this game, is a part of our past _ it reminds us of all that once was good, and that could be again. That said, people won't come."
Not to Busch Stadium. Not to Wrigley Field. Not even to the Field of Dreams itself, when the Cardinals play the White Sox on the famed Iowa farmland on Aug 13. In every other season, fans have the choice of going to the game or taking in the broadcast. But in the year of the pandemic there is no choice. As my father pointed out, the box scores in the paper this summer haven't included attendance figures.
"Hopefully baseball, for the greater good of our society, can get back to more normal interactions and having those experiences again," Cardinals manager Mike Shildt said of fans in the stands. "There are a lot of generational things that take place in our game, with grandfathers and fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles that take people to games. Just that shared relationship. And then, it's having people studying the game while being at the ballpark. So from that sense, I do feel like there is a definite miss" this season.
There will be a ballgame, but no one to sing about being taken out to one. There will be seventh innings, but no stretching. There will be foul balls, but no souvenirs. Fans will be deprived of free bobbleheads and pricey beer with head _ no Busch at Busch. There won't be any scorecards or scoreboard-watching or sunburns that on some bleacher bums turn as red as Schoendienst.
Going to the Cardinals game was the epitome of a St. Louis shared experience. Now, we all share the same experience of missing out on that experience. And so, instead of taking the Eads to Busch Stadium, we are bridged to baseball via the broadcasts.
The voices on KMOX (1120 AM), sometimes a summer day soundtrack, other times a late-night lullaby. And the Fox Sports Midwest broadcast with Dan MacLaughlin, who is just so good at his job.
On Sunday, St. Louis completed its first series of baseball at a distance. There were times in which it just looked weird. No fans? At first, it felt foreign ... or Floridian, for this is what Marlins fans see on TV. And the fake crowd noise felt as phony as late-90s biceps.
But you know what? After an inning or two, each game felt ... normal? Yeah, normal. A ballgame on the air in July. Thus, something that feels normal is again normal in our lives. A reassuring thing. After all, the one constant through all the years has been Jim Hayes' injury updates.
But in some ways, this is a lost summer. Paradise lost. St. Louisans can't experience the ballpark and ballgame. And what's really frustrating is that St. Louis kids can't experience the ballpark and ballgame. Every season, thousands of kids go to their first game. It's a rite of passage in this town. So in 2020, so many kids have missed out on that opportunity. How will that affect their fandom in the future?
Furthermore, going to Cardinals games is an essential part of so many St. Louis childhoods. Memories are made and kids grow into becoming baseball fans and thinkers and believers. The ballpark is St. Louis' other Magic House. And it's where they get to see their heroes in the flesh, something no technology can recreate.
The progression of the next generation of St. Louis fans has been stymied.
"I have thought about it," Shildt said, "especially when I get a ball that's near the stands. And I get in the habit of having a ball or two in my back pocket after batting practice, and you toss them to a young boy or girl. Hopefully they can enjoy it or play with it or have a positive experience and memory, which is what's so wonderful about our game _ the experience and the memories our game creates."
Most of the Cardinals players have played before the fans at Busch. But Kodi Whitley has not. He made his Major League debut on Sunday, pitching a clean seventh inning. So now, he's played for St. Louis, but has yet to play for St. Louis.
After the game, Whitley told reporters that he feels he'll "make two debuts" at Busch Stadium _ the one that occurred on Sunday, and then the first one, whenever that may be, in front of actual fans.
"We love the fans, they come and support us year-round," said Whitley, who attended the team's annual Winter Warm-Up back in January. "I know the fans are still at home, they're still rooting us on, and if we win then they're happy. And they're supporting and watching.
"But it is a little different with nobody in the stands, I will say that."
