Ballpark Village, 601 Clark Avenue, Unit #102
St. Louis, Missouri
Admission is $12 for individuals, $10 for seniors, and $8 for children. No free parking.
Website: http://cardinals.mlb.com/stl/cardinals-nation/hof.jsp
This museum is located in Ballpark Village next to Busch Stadium, home of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.
The 8000 square foot museum is on the second floor of Cardinals Nation.
Before entering the museum one walks through the Cardinals Hall of Fame.
Here you see the first of several interactive stations...
and a wall covered with great Cardinals quotes such as this one!
Upon entering the museum there is a short video about the team.
The museum is then basically organized according to the three main stadiums the Cardinals team has occupied but the museum also includes information about all professional baseball ever played in St. Louis.
The first section is called Sportsman's Park and includes many displays of the early days.
This display goes back to the 1880s.
Recognizable in the Busch II room is the old roof-line of that beautiful stadium.
Busch III recognizes our current players.
In the center of the museum is the Championship Gallery.
Like this display of 2011, there is a display for each of the eleven World Championships won by the Cardinals.
The last room, Cardinals Nation, includes souvenirs that have been given to ticket holders over the years. There are large displays of baseball cards, baseballs, and bobble-heads!
The museum includes a changing exhibit area. Throughout the 2016 season the highly successful farm system is being highlighted there with a special exhibit.
This museum is definitely a history museum full of many fun and interesting historical facts.
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| Note that only boys were rewarded! |
The displays are all excellent and by reading the explanations at the bottom you get a true picture of the history of the team.
No history of St. Louis is complete without space dedicated to Stan Musial and of course also an exhibit of his harmonica.
The final area is called Look of the Cardinals but in all reality there are uniform pieces throughout the displays in all areas of the museum going back to the early days.
These quilted pants were worn by some of the players in the 1880s to protect them from the rough-and-tumble plays that were in vogue then.
This game-worn shirt from the Cardinals minor league team, the Portsmouth Rebirds, was worn in 1937. Love the flying birds!
A base-stealing record-setter, Lou Brock wore these cleats in the 1960s.
Like any great museum, the Cardinals museum displays a variety of artifacts with over 1000 on display at any time. Very special artifacts include World Championship trophies made by Tiffany.
This Rawlings Gold Glove Award lists the 21 Cardinals recipients. It was awarded to the club in 2009.
This silver-plated music box, once owned by Stan Musial, plays "Take Me Out to the Ball-Game" and dates to the early twentieth century.
This traveling leather suitcase dates to the 1920s-1930s. The St. Louis Stars was a Negro League baseball team. The suitcase with logo would hang off the back of the team bus thus advertising the Stars. This is one of many displays tied to other professional baseball teams associated with St. Louis.
This 1928 ticket got one into the Negro League National Championship game which the Stars won that year in addition to two other years.
Displayed mementos from the final season in Busch II.
You can even sit on seats from Busch II.
Mementos from the first game played in Busch III.
A fun opportunity in the museum is to hold a bat that belonged to a famous Cardinals; this bat was Willie McGee's.
And you can also wear the 2011 World Championship ring complete with 103 diamonds and 50 rubies.
The museum does a nod to the stadium by acknowledging others that have used it. Included among these artifacts are a football, soccer ball, and a U2 poster.
Even the bathrooms display mementos - old game scorecards.
One of the highlights of the museum is the large models of the three major stadiums.
There are several interactive opportunities including a booth for calling plays.
Here you can chose to listen to managers discuss different topics.
And here you can sit and watch an exciting World Series game.
Ballpark Village offers much more than the museum.
There are several restaurants in addition to this large open eating area.
Of course, there is a gift shop.
There are displays throughout including this huge portrait made entirely of Rubik's cubes by a local high school art student.
We also chose to go on a guided tour of Busch Stadium.
Our tour was 4 days before the home opener and workers were busy preparing the field. In the boxes were the green seats that had yet to be installed behind home plate.
The tour included three restaurants, starting with the UMB Champions Club, an all-inclusive game experience.
We even saw the owner's private eating area behind their seats thus near the dugout.
We enjoyed seeing where Mike Shannon sits and broadcasts the games.
And of course, sitting in the dugout was very special.
The one place we did not enter was the Clubhouse.
Busch Stadium also has several displays. In the Champions Club are four of the team's World Championship trophies on display in beautiful wood cases.
Here our tour guide stands in front of enlarged covers of past World Series scorecards.
A display near one entrance.
This beautiful display shows the evolution of the BIRD.
A display of some of the Cardinals trinkets that belonged to and adorned the office of former Promotion Director Marty Henden.
Recognition of the championships in Busch III.
And then there were statues - of outstanding players...
of a former owner - Augie Busch...
of the great Stan the Man...
and of our much-loved former announcer, Jack Buck. This statue talks to you!
We followed our tour with lunch at one of the many restaurants in Ballpark Village, the Budweiser Brew House.
Yummy bratwurst sliders with fries!
Comments: We had a great time at Ballpark Village and Busch Stadium and highly recommend going. It was especially fun to be there right before the home season began. I was surprised how many of the other tourists were from out-of-state and were there to enjoy St. Louis's enthusiasm for baseball and to learn about our great team. There were more tourists on the tour than in the museum which on our day was relatively empty.
We spent 45 minutes in the museum before leaving to go on the 1.25 hour tour and then returned to the museum for another about 30 minutes. Like most museums, one can spend 1-3 hours there depending on how much you study each display. The displays were very easy to follow and included great explanations for all of the artifacts. The museum did a wonderful job covering all aspects of over 130 years of professional baseball in St. Louis. The club previously had small museums in their last 2 stadiums so when this museum was installed in 2014 they obviously had collected over the years some of the items now on display.
We also thoroughly enjoyed our stadium tour by guide Tim. He was excellent and it was fun to see parts of the stadium one normally would not see. We were blessed with decent weather but most of the tour was inside which makes the tour doable in less desirable weather. There are many stairs but also elevators are available. The tour was definitely worth it.
Both the museum and the tour require tickets but one can purchase a combination ticket and save almost half. (The price goes up during the season.) The tours are offered at set times and we were advised to purchase the tickets online to guarantee a place in a tour. None of us had problems ordering online. A tour can hold 40 tourists and the stadium will offer additional tours on days where there is a demand. The museum ticket is good for the entire day. The Hall of Fame is free. There are both parking lots and garages available. Because we ate in Ballpark Village we received a discount on our parking in the village parking lot so we ended up paying $4 for about 5 hours.
We arrived for the 10:00 opening of the museum to learn that many of the village doors do not open until 11:00. To get to the second floor museum at 10:00, one can enter on the west side where the gift shop is located.
The museum is open every day and offers special artifact spotlight dates. Check the website for scheduling.
About eating at Ballpark Village - there were more options than we had anticipated. There are currently six including The Fudgery. The options range from a fast-serve Mexican food counter to a premier sushi restaurant. We chose the Budweiser Brew House which like two others there serves basically bar food. The food was very good and slightly pricey, as to be expected. The restaurant was relaxing and it was easy to converse with others and be heard. Menus are at: http://www.stlballparkvillage.com/dining/dine/budweiser-brew-house
Obviously there are a number of other restaurants in walking distance.
And finally: Go Cardinals!
