UPDATE TO PLAYBALL THREAD

Today, we have a guest blogger, "anonymous" from the Playball thread. I was going for the "pictures are worth a thousand words" effect on that thread. "Anonymous", who sometimes comments as "Hydeman" posted a comment about last Tuesday night at the New Busch Stadium and I thought what he had to say deserved to be brought out of the comment section:

Additional Notes from Someone Who Was There....
- Sly was wearing a dress and heels at work. She walked several blocks to the stadium, then stood and walked in, over, under, around and through the stadium for about 2 hours, then walked several blocks back to her parking garage. She didn't complain about her feet hurting, but we all knew

- In the second camera-phone photo, you see the upper deck in right field. Access is by elevator (for wimps), by ramps (for sissies), and by stairs (for real men). 116 stairs from ground level. Come to think of it, do real men count stairs? Hmmm.

- The AA team, Springfield Cardinals, beat the AAA team, Memphis Redbirds, in the first-ever baseball game in the new stadium. Memphis' Shaun Boyd hit the first home run in the new stadium. For extra credit, remember that it was hit off of Sidney Ponson, pitching for Springfield that night, but really he's one of the St. Louis Cardinals' starting pitchers this year.

- The mascots were out in force. Springfield had their bird, Memphis had their bird, and St. Louis had their guess what -- bird. All red. All cardinals. We had a covey of them. I know there's a bird-flu joke in there somewhere, but I can't think of it.


Ed Note about the stair climbing: There was no frikkin' way I was climbing stairs in high heels. Judy (hydeman's girlfriend) had knee issues, so she and I opted not to climb stairs (or count them). The elevators have actual real live operators, for some reason. When Judy and I were taking the elevator down, we asked for the second floor. The operator told us the elevator didn't open on the second floor, that we'd have to get off on the third floor and walk down. Oh-kay, a little odd.

We did that and we arrived on the second floor as the elevator got there. The doors opened and the operator announced "Mezzanine." I swear, I did not make that up.