Commissioner's Box

What a day at the ballpark yesterday!

Despite the fact that the Cardinals lost and the winning run scored in the first inning, these $100-a-pop seats were worth it to us as a delayed birthday present for Dena.

Field-level access began two hours prior to game time and ended one hour prior. Since we had to get there by 11:15 then, we started the three-hour journey at 7:30 in case there any construction delays (there weren't). We were waved into lot C just 100 yards from the park, and strolled down to the Cardinals' dugout where we were greeted by our servers for the day, Kerry and Zach. These fellows gave us the complimentary menus and, like any restaurant server, stopped by throughout the game to ask if we needed any more food or beverages that they could fetch for us. They also gave us special wrist bracelets which allowed us to ditch the oversized commemorative tickets that we'd otherwise have worn from laniards around our necks the rest of the day.

The Commissioner's Box is a thirty-seat section, which allowed the servers to learn our names by the end of the day. And field-level access meant stepping through a gate onto a small patch of ground which was itself enclosed by the kind of temporary fencing used to prevent foul balls from smacking people in the head during batting practice. So while there wasn't much action per se, it was a holding place until our turn came up to go down into the dugout for our complimentary professional photo. Then they let us play around in our half of the dugout and come up with a couple poses of our own to capture with our own camera.

By this time the 80 degree temps in the direct sun had us ready to walk around in the shade of the stadium, where Dena found a pink Cardinals visor and also changed into a tank top. This caused us to miss Cardinals' batting practice, but we were more grateful for the cool environment. And we made it back down in plenty of time for the start of the game.

We shot about 40 photos in all, and were spared from any local line drive danger that could potentially have come our way. In between innings it was Albert Pujols' custom to toss a ball into the stands to little kids. And in the last inning the Cards actually loaded the bases and had the winning run at the plate, with the crowd screaming on their feet for their star hitter.

It would've been hard to top this experience!