We recently made our annual weekend baseball trip to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play. I have a good friend who works for the St. Louis Rams who has a buddy within the Cardinals organization who helps us out with tickets that are closer to the field rather than up in the upper deck at Busch Stadium. Last year, my buddy got us comped tickets into the UMB Champions Club, an all-inclusive food and drink area on the second deck of the stadium. It worked out well because the game time temperature was 106 degrees (41C). This year, he was able to procure comped passes to the Champions Club once again for us. And that was good - we endured a 3 hour rain delay before the game began.
The UMB Champions Club (the title sponsor for the room is UMB Financial, based out of Kansas City) has a capacity of about 360 people and opens an hour and a half before the game. They'll stop serving the food and drinks during the game if it hasn't reached the end of the 7th inning before a three hour time limit. And if you're lucky enough to hold a ticket to get in to the Champions Club, it's all free. Yep, free beer, free prime rib, free pasta, free mixed drinks - it's all free.
With that said, I can't say that it's the best food I've ever had. But - once again - it's free. And free food always seems to taste a little bit better.
The weather over the weekend when we were in St. Louis had been somewhat threatening. Rain had slightly delayed the start of the previous game the night before. And a line of heavy thunderstorms was heading toward the St. Louis area about two hours before game time. After having a couple beers at Mike Shannon's Outfield bar, we (our friends, Scott and Marcia, Cindy and myself) set off for Busch Stadium around 5:30 - more than an hour and a half before the scheduled start of the game. We figured we could get over into the Champions Club to make sure we'd be high and dry when the heavy weather made it to the stadium.
We got into the stadium just as the first bursts of wind rocked the downtown St. Louis area. We made our way up an escalator and through a couple checkpoints to get into the Champions Club. We found the place to be about halfway full when we procured seats at one of the two bars in the room.
The focal point of the Champions Club are the World Series champion trophies that are on display in the room. Below left is 2006 World Series trophy and below right is the 2011 trophy.
And to the left here is the 1967 World Series champion trophy. Many of the 11 World Series trophies the Cardinals have won over the years that are on display in the Champions Club used to be on display in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum that was once housed in the old Busch Memorial Stadium until it closed in 2005. The museum was moved across the street to pair with the International Bowling Hall of Fame. With the proposed development of the Ballpark Village, the building that housed both the Cardinals Hall of Fame and the Bowling Hall of Fame closed down. (The International Bowling Hall of Fame has since relocated to Arlington, TX.) They began work on the first phase of the Ballpark Village earlier this year and by this time next year, they should have the new Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum open to the public. I don't know if the trophies will go back on display at the museum, but it's my educated guess that they probably will. That may kill the concept behind the Champions Club at Busch Stadium.
The first thing we did when we got settled in was to order drinks from the duo bartender team of Linda and Joyce. It was Bud Light drafts for Scott and me, pina coladas for the ladies. Both bartenders were friendly, homespun and down-to-earth. Even though the drinks were free, we were tipping the gals heavily for being on top of making sure we had something in our glasses at all times.
There's an area of the Champions Club that features six large flat screen televisions on the wall. (There are over 30 flat screens on the walls all around the room.) They had messages on three of them saying that the game would likely be delayed due to approaching weather and that the Cardinals would do everything in their power to play the game. They just didn't say if the game would be played that evening or in August or September.
The tarp was on the field in anticipation of the approaching storm with utility vehicles placed on the corners and along the edge to help keep the wind from whipping under the tarp. The initial blast of wind was followed by a little bit of rain. They had the local weather radar on the Jumbotron screen on the scoreboard and you could see that the really heavy stuff was just moments away. Not long after 6 p.m., the storm hit with a fury. Strong winds whipped the sheets of heavy rain over the field. And while the wind did subside after a bit, the heavy rain did not. It poured for a long time, puddling water on the outfield grass. While it didn't look good for the scheduled 7:15 p.m. start, it also didn't look good that the game would ever get started that evening. It was not a big matter to us - we were dry in the Champions Club and eating and drinking for free!
I took a lap around the food area to see what they had to offer. Actually, it wasn't any different from what they had the previous year. They had a salad/pasta bar that featured cold and hot pasta with marinara and alfredo sauces. They also had another food bar that had things like nacho chips, salsa and cheese.
They had a stir-fry area where people could get chunks of beef or chicken cooked with veggies. It appeared to be a pretty popular place.
Also a popular place was the prime rib carving station (below left). The prime rib was a little overcooked and pretty basic. I had a small slab of it with some au jus and creamy horseradish. I wouldn't have been happy with the cut of meat had I paid for it. But for free, it was tasty!
My favorite food station in the Champions Club was the hot dog/brat stand. The guy was cranking out flat-grilled hot dogs and brats by the dozens. I'm sort of a hot dog connoisseur and the hot dogs they have on the concourses at Busch Stadium are all right, but they're very salty. The hot dogs in the Champions Club had just a small hint of a salty taste and were very good. I'm sort of a sucker for a good flat-grilled hot dog. I went back later on during the rain delay (remember, it ended up being three hours long) and got a brat. While I like to have my brats boiled in beer first, then put on the grill to char them up, these were also pretty good. Along with some sauerkraut and mustard, they were as good as the hot dogs.
Scott and the girls found the dessert bar complete with cookies and brownies. I had a chocolate chip cookie that was good and rich, but it also told me that I had eaten too much food. I concentrated on drinking beer from then on out.
On the bar, there was a sign that said that due to the rain delay they would stop the bar service at 9:35 p.m. Now, we had been there since before 6 p.m. so drinking for free for over three hours was a real treat. We thought it was an odd and arbitrary time - 9:35 p.m. - to pull the plug on the bar. About 9:15, we noticed that the bar area was getting a little more hopping with people getting their last drinks for free. The bartenders were doing all they could to keep up with the demands. Marcia and Cindy decided they wanted one more drink and I thought I'd get a beer.
I finally got Joyce's attention and had her start making the pina colada mix. She started the blender and poured the shots of rum into glasses for Cindy and Marcia. Suddenly, a supervisor showed up and said, "That's it. Bar is shut down!" I looked at the time on my phone, it was 9:34.
Joyce turned to the supervisor and said, "I've got a couple glasses here to finish."
The supervisor bluntly and brusquely said, "Nope. That's it. No more bar service."
Joyce took the two glasses with the shots of rum in them and turned to pour them in the sink. I about came unglued. "You're throwing them out," I asked incredulously. "All you have to do is poor the mix into the glasses!"
She sort of shrugged her shoulders and gave me a look of, "Yeah, I know...", as she poured the rum and then the mix down the drain. I was somewhat shocked they would do that. But I guess I shouldn't have complained as loudly as I did given that everything was free in the Champions Club.
The rain stopped around 9:30 p.m. and the field drained sufficiently for the game to eventually get started at 10:15 p.m. Scott and I made it down to our seats along the left field foul line before the first pitch. Cindy and Marcia sat in the seats just outside the Champions Club and watched about seven innings of the game up there before coming down to join us for the last couple of innings.
And we stayed for the whole game - it ended at 1:15 a.m. We were part of only a couple thousand people left at the end of the game. But it was a good game to see.
I've been blessed with having a number of friends who can help me out at times. The old adage, "It's not what you know, but who you know" came into play here with my buddy who got us hooked up with passes into the Champions Club. It's nice to be treated to things like this from time to time and I certainly appreciate the gesture. And I know Cindy and Marcia REALLY appreciate the Champions Club as they enjoy the clean and spacious bathrooms - with no lines - in the place. The Champions Club is certainly a treat when we have the opportunity to get in.
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