Guru:
First of all, I've got to thank my girlfriend's dad, who was kind enough to give me a ticket to THE game. Unbelievable. I am so gracious, and I would appreciate anyone reading this to e-mail him at digger@mt-olive.com and tell him how cool he is. Really, he deserves it.

So, my girlfriend and I were off to St. Louis. It was about 6:20 by the time we got there. Game time was 7:10. Parking was impossible, we ended up in a decrepit old garage about a mile away from Busch, but it only set me back $5. As we walked up to the stadium, we were asked about a million times if we had any extra tickets. I overheard a guy offering to sell left-field seats for the "low low price" of $500. Another guy wanted $600 for a ticket, but I don't know where it was. Also, there were at least 15-20 news vans parked outside the stadium.

We dropped off a ticket at the will-call for a family member, and headed inside at about 6:45 or so. First off, we headed for the scorecards. The guy who set me up with the ticket wanted one, so I felt pretty obligated. However, the scorecards were extremely hot because they had the date on the inside. They were only $1.50, so people were walking around lugging dozens of them. We found that 58,000 had originally been printed, and they were all gone. Bummer. So we headed for our seats, which were in the right-field bleachers. (F.Y.I., they were $6.) I sat down, and my girlfriend set off to find her pops a scorecard. Luckily, 15,000 extras were whipped up out of the blue, so she stood in line for half an hour to pick up seven of them. Meanwhile, the game was starting, so I headed out behind the left-field bleachers in hopes of catching #62. I knew I had a snowball's chance in hell, but couldn't stop thinking, "What if..."

So there I was, standing in a cluster of about 50 people who had the same bright idea as me. We waited while Mercker gave up 2 runs in a long top of the first. Sometime during the inning, a bald guy who couldn't have been over 5'7" and was drunk off his @$$ decided to use me for an armrest. But I wasn't going anywhere. Also, I looked behind me in the ever-growing mass of money-mongers and saw none other than the Wonderdog, Rex Hudler, drinking a beer. I said hi, shook his hand, and turned back around. He was really nice. He showed off scars on his arms and explained how he'd left half of his skin cells on the Busch Stadium's old carpet. Cool. Anyway, McGwire grounded out, so I snuck a peek at the always-busy concession stands in dead center. There was absolutely no one in line. So I hustled over, picked up a footlong and a Coke ($5.50, but the footlong was quite delectable), and headed back for my spot in the middle of the right-field bleachers. On my way down, I spilled some of my Coke on the guy sitting next to me. Oopsie!

The next time McGwire came up, I decided to give up and stay put. There were tons of people where I was last time, and I didn't feel like crawling all over everybody to get out. So on the first pitch, well, he hit it. It had to have been the shortest home run he's ever hit. The place went absolutely nuts. I was trying to take pictures, so I didn't see a whole lot. I did see him go back for first base, though, and it reminded me of a kid on my high school team who hit a home run but missed home plate and was called out. (What a moron.) I thought what would have happened if they would've called McGwire out. Yeah, right. As you know, the ball went under the billboards in left. Believe it or not, I have been behind the wall in that spot before. It was about five years back, when the stadium still had turf. What's back there, you ask? Well, when I was back there, there were huge rolls of artificial turf, those little carts the groundskeepers use, and other assorted groundskeeping items. Which is why it made sense to me when I found out that a groundskeeper got the ball.

I'm sure you all know what happened on the field during all this, so I won't go into it.

Anyway, as soon as the inning was over, the scoreboard flashed that "62 merchandise is now available throughout the stadium." So we followed the masses of people out to the concourse to go treasure hunting. There were pennants (12,000) of which were made), baseballs (16,000 made), exclusive 8x10's (don't know how many), all for a mere $10 each. I ended up picking up four pennants and three 8x10's. Call me an idiot, but I had to fight through a crowd to get them. Also, while I was pushing my way through the souvenir line, a bunch of kids who had gathered outside managed to somehow break a steel gate. About 15 of them rushed in. There was an usher watching the gate who was about 65 years old, but he really couldn't do anything. About 5 minutes later, some more punk kids broke in. By the way, there were a ton of people right outside the gates the whole game. More could've gotten in when the kids came in, but luckily they had some respect. Later on, a couple security guards came over and staked out the broken gate. Also at this time, a guy outside the gate was offering $20 for ticket stubs.

That was really about it. It was a good game, by the way.

We went back behind home plate, in the upper deck, for the ceremony afterwards. They let people in off the streets for the ceremony. There were probably about 45,000 people still in the stadium for the ceremony, which was really great.

So we headed for the exits. At this time, people were offering $40-$50 for ticket stubs and $10 for scorecards, and getting few, if any, takers.

We got outside, and saw some people carrying commemorative newspapers put out by the Post-Dispatch. They had put them out Monday also, which were the first "extras" they had made since World War II. We saw a guy holding a bundle of papers, and asked him where to head. He pointed us in the right direction. From other sources, we learned that there were 150,000 to be made, and that they were being sold out of trucks and vans. So we wandered around the streets near the Bowling Hall of Fame, which is right across from the stadium. I almost bought a couple for $5 apiece. Then we saw a little bit of a fracas. A bunch of people were chewing out some guy who had bought a whole trunk load of the papers. He yelled back, saying they could have bought them too and that more trucks would be pulling up soon with more papers. Hearing this, we headed further down the street. Once we started getting away from the crowds, we saw an SUV pull up, so I sprinted for it. It was full of papers. About 200 other people went sprinting for it at this point. Three cops were there in a heartbeat. One was screaming, "We're not going through this sh*t again, make a line!" He only let the newspaper guys open up one door. By this time, there was a huge crowd there, but I had a pretty good spot in line. I ended up picking up 20 of them for 50 cents apiece. And I could've sold each and every one of them for $10 apiece in a heartbeat, but I didn't. Finally, I headed home, and learned that Mike Shannon got the call on KMOX, not Jack Buck, which upset me a little, but I wasn't really in a position to complain. I got to my girlfriend's house at about 1:00 A.M. I kissed her dad's feet for a while (he gave me the ticket), and he gave me 1 of the special papers from Monday in exchange for 10 of today's. Hey, I think I owed him a little.

Anyway, I got home at about 1:30, and it's 2:43 now. I should be tired, but I'm not. It was a great night, one I'll never forget. If anybody wants to know anything, feel free to drop me a line. But don't even ask about buying anything from me; nothing's for sale. I've said that enough tonight. Well, I'm going to try to sleep. I hope I didn't leave anything out, and I hope it's somewhat readable. Later.

Ryan Pastrovich rpastro@mt-olive.com (9/9)

response from Guru:
Thanks for the info, Joe. A pretty rare feat, obviously. - Guru