Joey's World Tour: Missouri Madness (Part I - Busch-whacked in St. Louis)

Meet me in St. Louis, preferably in front of the home plate entrance.  (Photo by Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

Greetings, baseball and travel enthusiasts.  I'm Joey Beartran, your favorite roving reporter/culinary expert for Studious Metsimus.  Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting Missouri, which is the home of two Major League Baseball teams.  Unfortunately, both of those Show-Me State squads have caused great suffering to Mets fans, as they each contributed to two of the team's most heartbreaking postseason defeats in the 21st century.

As much as I can never root for the St. Louis Cardinals and Kansas City Royals because of what they did to the Mets in 2006 and 2015, respectively, I can put aside my differences with the teams for just a moment to discuss their cities, ballparks and cuisine, which I will do in this two-part installment of Joey's World Tour.  (You can read the second part by clicking here.)  We begin in the Gateway to the West, St. Louis.

After taking two out of three games against the Cardinals at Citi Field to open the season, the Mets appeared to be on their way to winning another series when they traveled to St. Louis and took the opening game, 6-5 in 10 innings.  The Studious Metsimus staff and I didn't attend that thrilling contest, but we did have tickets to the final two games of the series.  So how did the Mets reward us for traveling halfway across the country to see them finish the job against their hated rivals?

They got blown out in the first game we attended, then dropped a 13-inning heartbreaker in the series finale.  Thanks for nothing, guys!

The games might not have been anything to write home about (or devote more than two sentences about in a blog post), but Busch Stadium and the immediate vicinity around the ballpark were something else.

Behind me is a village within the city, all devoted to food, fun and baseball.  (EL/SM)

Directly behind the left field fence is Ballpark Village, which is a complex that houses several eateries and bars.  From Drunken Fish (sushi) to El Birdos Cantina (Tex-Mex) to the Fudgery (you figure it out), dinner and dessert can all be had a hop, skip and a jump away from the ballpark.  For those who like entertainment with their food and drink, there's the Budweiser Brew House, which is three stories of adult beverages, dancing and live entertainment.  And if you like sports, there's FOX Sports Midwest Live!, which is 20,000 square feet of sports, sports and more sports.  There's also a stage for concerts and a VIP area for people like me.

I didn't visit any of those places, mainly because I had two Mets losses to attend.  But I did enter the Ballpark Village complex for one other thing; the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum.  And what an experience that was!

The floor design as you exit the elevator to the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum (EL/SM)

The first thing you see (besides what's in the photo above) is the wall of Hall of Fame plaques.  Similar to the Mets Hall of Fame, each player given the highest individual honor by the Cardinals has a plaque mounted on a wall, depicting his career highlights.

To the left of these plaques are the players who will be inducted this year.  For 2018, those players are Pepper Martin, Mark McGwire and former Mets broadcaster Tim McCarver.  In addition to their own plaques, each new inductee has a display booth featuring the jerseys they wore and other memorabilia from their career with the Cardinals.

Lots of red in the Cardinals Hall of Fame.  And lots of legends as well.  (EL/SM)

In addition to celebrating their best players, the Cardinals are also proud of their ballparks.  There is a room dedicated to the previous Busch Stadium, complete with a model of the ballpark St. Louis called home from 1966 to 2005 and one of the dugout benches from the dearly departed venue.

The Cardinals also haven't forgotten the other team that used to call St. Louis home.  Until they moved to Baltimore for the 1954 season, the St. Louis Browns shared the city with the Cards.  And in 1944, the two teams squared off in the Street Car Series, which was the first (and only) World Series featuring both teams from the Gateway City.  A display in the museum proudly remembers that Fall Classic, which was won the town's National League squad.

Speaking of the Browns, probably my favorite artifact in the museum was the actual jersey worn by Eddie Gaedel, the 3-foot, 7-inch "athlete" signed by owner Bill Veeck as a publicity stunt.  Wearing the number 1/8 on the back of his uniform, Gaedel walked in his only plate appearance for the Browns in 1951.  Why is it my favorite item in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum?  Because it's the only uniform that would probably fit me!

Actually, Eddie Gaedel's uniform still looks too big for me.  That's okay.  I'm still growing.  (Photos by EL/SM)

So now you know my favorite display in the museum.  What was my least favorite?  That's easy.  It was the display on the 2006 Cardinals, also known as the team that took the pennant away from the Mets at Shea Stadium.

Featured in the disgusting display of devastating disappointment was the World Series trophy, a World Series ticket, the championship ring won by the victorious Cardinals and one game-used bat and jersey.  But it's not just any bat/jersey combo.  It's the lumber that was wielded by Yadier Molina along with the threads he wore when he hit his infamous home run off Aaron Heilman in the ninth inning of Game Seven of the National League Championship Series.

It's like they knew we were coming and wanted to pour more salt in the 12-year-old wound.

But I wasn't that bad of a sport.  In fact, the next people to enter the room got a clear view of the 2006 display, mainly because they saw it all under a full moon of my creation.

Is that a championship banner or bear-sized toilet paper?  I vote for the latter.  (EL/SM)

I almost felt like I was walking through a maze in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum.  There was a room dedicated to the legendary Stan Musial.  Then there was one dedicated to the great 1980s teams that won three pennants and one World Series title.  From there, it was on to an area devoted to the great managers in club history.  There was also a timeline with all the uniforms the Cardinals have worn over the years (complete with a photo of Keith Hernandez), including the sweet powder blue jerseys from the '70s and '80s.

But wait, there's more!

There were Cardinals bobbleheads, a model of the new Busch Stadium and a beautiful photo of the construction of the new park with the old stadium still standing.  For some reason, they also had the World Baseball Classic trophy on display.  And there was probably a kitchen sink somewhere in there as well.

But just when you thought the Cardinals couldn't fit anything else inside their museum, they did.  I'm talking about an area dedicated to ex-Met and former teenage shortstop sensation Jose Oquendo.  That's not hyperbole.  The Oquendo space actually exists.

Makes me wonder why there's no Rey Ordoñez jersey in the Mets Hall of Fame and Museum (EL/SM)

If you look at the photo of the construction of the new Busch Stadium, you'll notice that the left field area of the new park overlapped part of the old Busch.  That part of the old ballpark is marked in two places at the new stadium.

In the field level concourse behind the left field foul pole is a painted white line, which is the exact spot while the right field foul line used to be at old Busch Stadium.  Then, on the sidewalk outside the new stadium in the Ballpark Village is a green and yellow line.  That represents the spot where the outfield wall at old Busch used to be.

Howard Johnson took Todd Worrell deep here.  Great memories from before my time.  (EL/SM)

Now that we're talking about the stadium, why not show you what's good there?  The ballpark itself is lovely, with Cardinal red seats on every level.  And if that's not enough red for you, the ballpark is made of red bricks, with small cardinals above every entrance and a pretty big cardinal walking around the ballpark insulting Mets fans in attendance.

Oh, wait.  That was Fredbird, the team's mascot.  And he tried to obscure my colleagues' Mets caps and jerseys when we met him.

My colleagues seemed to enjoy this photo op.  I, on the other hand, wanted to pluck Fredbird's feathers.  (EL/SM)

But seriously, there's red EVERYWHERE.  The ballpark is also decorated with pennants, retired numbers, statues of the greatest players to don the Cardinal red, an homage to a legendary broadcaster, large bricks that detail great moments in Cardinals history (including Steve Carlton's 19-strikeout loss to the Mets in 1969) and a scoreboard that's topped by reminders of each of the Cardinals' World Series championships - all 11 of them.  And the scoreboard on the field isn't the only one in the ballpark.  Located in the field level concourse is the old hand-operated scoreboard from the old Busch Stadium.

I have to say, the ballpark is quite photogenic.

Sweet view, right?  (EL?SM)

Busch Stadium offers beautiful views of the city if you're lucky enough to snag a seat behind home plate, like I did in the above photo.  And speaking of plates, many of the food options at the ballpark are served in containers that are shaped like home plate.  But unlike other ballparks that have unique food options, the fare at Busch Stadium is mostly what you would expect at a minor league ballpark.  You have the basic ballpark cuisine and not much else.  But they did have tater tots, which is always a plus for me.

I also had another potato product, but that was absolutely awful.  It was a potato knish and it pretty much looked like a bread bowl; a very dry flavorless bread bowl with nothing in it.  Don't just take my word for it.  Have a look for yourself.

At least the tater tots were edible.  And that's not saying much.  (EL/SM)

Thinking of how disappointed I was in the food, the fact the Mets lost both games we attended, the stress-inducing artifacts in the Cardinals Hall of Fame and Museum and the fact that I couldn't convince Fredbird to wear more orange and blue made me glad this was only the first stop in our tour of the two Missouri ballparks.  Surely, Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City had to be better by default.  (Spoiler alert: It was soooooo much better.)

So that's all for the first part of my recap of the two Show-Me State stadiums.  Remember to click here to read about my adventures in Kansas City and also remember to bring your own food into Busch Stadium the next time you visit the park.  Unlike Aaron Heilman's pitch to Yadier Molina, you won't regret that decision.

I regret attending these two losses by the Mets.  (EL/SM)

For previous installments of Joey's World Tour, please click on the links below, where you will be entertained by Joey's wit, photos and love of ballpark cuisine:

World Tour Stop #1: Baltimore
World Tour Stop #2: Washington, DC
World Tour Stop #3: Pittsburgh
World Tour Stop #4: Texas
World Tour Stop #5: Los Angeles
World Tour Stop #6: San Diego
World Tour Stop #7: Toronto
World Tour Stop #8: Chicago (NL)
World Tour Stop #9: Milwaukee
World Tour Stop #10: Seattle
World Tour Stop #11: Cleveland
World Tour Stop #12: Brooklyn (Ebbets Field site) and Manhattan (Polo Grounds site)
World Tour Stop #13: Baltimore (again) and Pittsburgh (part deux)
World Tour Stop #14: Cincinnati
World Tour Stop #15: Colorado
World Tour Stop #16: Cooperstown (Baseball Hall of Fame)
World Tour Stop #17: Detroit
World Tour Stop #18: Atlanta
World Tour Stop #19: Miami

 

Joey's Small Bites: Crashing the MLB Food Fest

Never has a napkin been so honest in its message.  (Ed Leyro/Studious Metsimus)

What's cooking, everybody?  This is Studious Metsimus roving reporter and culinary expert Joey Beartran and I just finished putting the second half of my title to use as I attended this weekend's MLB Food Fest at Center 415 on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

What was the purpose of this sumptuous smorgasbord?  I'm glad you asked.  The food fest allowed fans to sample 30 unique food items from each of the 30 MLB teams, although you were only allowed two hours to do it and had to bump your way through several thousand people to get to the stand you wanted to go to.  For $25, you could try everything on the menu and have unlimited soft drinks and bottled water.  For an extra 15 bucks, you could add three adult beverages (beer and/or cider) as well.  Each item was billed as half the size of the actual ballpark concession and for the most part, they were.  But of course, the Marlins couldn't afford a calculator so their offering was more like a quarter of actual ballpark size.

Still, good times were had by all, especially by me, as I made sure to enter the building with an empty stomach so I could try as many foods as possible.  Knowing that I only had a two-hour window, I recruited my Studious Metsimus colleagues, Ed Leyro and Taryn Cooper, and faithful Studious Metsimus reader, Tracey Mapou, to help me get my paws on as many foods as possible.  And by helping me, I mean going around from stand to stand while I sat at one of the few empty tables we could find.

Before my friends and colleagues could get around to their race around the place for food to stuff my face, I must mention the hot dog room, which was an homage to the ballpark staple, the frankfurter.  The two eye-catchers in the exhibit were a giant hot dog seesaw and a pyramid of wieners, which my sister (and Mariners fan), Honey Bee Hawk was hoping was made of real frankfurters.

Dogs, dogs, dogs.  And one bear.  (Top photo by Tracey Mapou.  Bottom photo by EL/SM.)

As some of the lines were very long depending on the popularity of the product, we went to the shorter lines first before hitting up the longer ones.  As a result, I started my 120-minute feast with a sampling of the Mid-Atlantic offerings, namely Washington's Crab Grilled Cheese and Baltimore's Chesapeake Waffle Fries, which were paired with a crab dip.  The former was definitely the better of the two, and I'm not even a fan of seafood.  I'm more a fan of "see food", as in when I see food, I usually eat it.

Crab to the left of me, crab to the right.  Here I am, stuck in the middle with food.  (EL/SM)

One of the things I was most pleased about regarding the presentation of the food was the paper that adorned the small container that carried the items.  If you look at the photo above, you can see the Walgreens logo on the Nationals' offering and the Oriole bird on Baltimore's dish.  It made it so much easier to identify what you were eating, especially when you weren't the one going up to the stands to get the food and had to write a piece the next morning that involved photographs of said items.  To quote the legendary television character, Luke Duke, I was "much obliged."

After crabbing it up with Washington and Baltimore's fare, I moved on to the Pittsburgh Pirates' Pulled Pork Pierogie Hoagie, which was much easier to eat than it was to pronounce.  Now, I've been to PNC Park in Pittsburgh before and always made the Primanti Brothers sandwich my go-to meal during games.  But after having this hoagie, I think I may have to reconsider my ballpark food choice the next time I cross the Roberto Clemente Bridge for a game.  Even though it was only half the size of what you would get at the ballpark (this one was truly 50% of the full size offering, as my colleague saw the preparers make a full hoagie, then cut it in half before serving it), it was still a mouthful.  This wasn't just a bite-size snack; this was a decent-sized meal, and I would definitely want to eat this delicacy again, and maybe I did.  (More on that later.)

Pulled pork and a pierogie on a hoagie?  This was a winner, and not just for fans of alliteration and rhyming.  (EL/SM)

With the Mets playing in Atlanta as the food fest was going on, I decided I should try something from the home of our long-time division rivals.  The Braves' offering was the Pig Pickin', which according to the official food fest description was a "BBQ spiced tortilla shell stuffed with curly fries, macaroni and cheese, pulled pork, coleslaw and roasted corn pico de gallo with fried pork rinds on the side".  This offering proved one thing; that the Braves have not only killed the Mets for many years, they've also managed to kill Mets fans as well.  The Pig Pickin' sounds like a heart attack waiting to happen so I had to devour it quickly before it could do the same to me.

At least the Pig Pickin' wasn't full-sized.  I'd like to be around to see the Mets win another pennant.  (EL/SM)

Next up is a Texas Two-Step, also known as Houston's Chicken Waffle Cone and Texas' Chicken and Donut Slider.  These two were deeeeeelicious.  Obviously, since I am a fan of breaded chicken, I knew I was going to like these before I sampled them.  But just putting fried chicken on a "bun" made of glazed donuts and popcorn chicken as a topping in a waffle cone filled with mashed potatoes (with honey mustard "sprinkles") was enough to make me want to put on a cowboy hat and fly down to Texas to have these delicacies in their full size, the way nature intended them to be.

Taste the fried chicken flavor!  (And donuts.  And mashed potatoes.  And honey mustard.) (EL/SM)

A few things that were okay were from St. Louis (bacon-wrapped Nathan's hot dog), Minnesota (Kurd Marczuk, which was breaded cheese curds and bratwurst topped with brown gravy), San Francisco (Crazy Crab Sandwich) and Detroit (chicken shawarma nachos).  The Cardinals' offering was originally billed as a genoa salami dish, but was changed to something you can get at many ballparks.  I wasn't overly impressed.  The Twins' offering was messy with all the gravy, but if you can get past that, it was edible.  After having the Nationals' and Orioles' crab meat, it was just crab overload when I tried what the Giants gave me.  And the Tigers' dish was actually better than I made it out to be in my intro to this paragraph.  The pita chips were crunchy and nacho-like, while the chicken was tasty without being gamey.  The hummus could've been better though.

From top to bottom, bacon-wrapped hot dog, Kurd Marczuk, Crazy Crab Sandwich and chicken shawarma nachos.  (EL/SM)

In the middle photo above, you may have noticed something above the Kurd Marczuk.  Eagle-eyed readers may also have spotted the Miami Marlins logo on the paper.  That's because:

a) My colleague simply forgot to take a separate photo of Miami's bacon-wrapped plantain, not knowing where I was going with this piece, or

b) A food offering that small in size would've been lost if it weren't combined with another item in the photo.

Last year, I traveled to Miami and had a full-sized bacon-wrapped plantain, so I was excited to have it again at the food fest, even if it was only going to be 50% of what I had at Marlins Park.  Um, unless the size of the food fest offering was calculated by using common core math, I don't think it was half the size of the original.  Take a look at what I got this weekend and compare it to the real deal from Miami.

I've heard of chicken fingers, but bacon-wrapped plantain fingers?  Did Derek Jeter have something to do with this?  (EL/SM)

Speaking of Derek Jeter, I did something I'm not too proud of.  I tried the food from Yankee Stadium.  I'm sorry, but it was adobo bao and I thought I'd like it.  For all you kids out there, this dish had chicken and pork rinds in a bao bun.  For all you other kids out there, bao is a Chinese dumpling.  Anyhow, here's a picture of it.  I don't need to describe how it tasted because I don't want to compliment anything that came from Yankee Stadium.  I'll just lump it in with the "it was okay" food items, even though it may have better than okay, but don't quote me on that.

Get that Yankee logo off my food wrapper!  (EL/SM)

Before I forget, there was one thing I wouldn't try, but my sister did.  Honey Bee Hawk, being the big Mariners fan that she is, wanted to try the fare from the Seattle stand.  And I can guarantee there's nothing like it at any of the other 29 ballparks in the majors.

The toasted grasshoppers were the only insects on the menu, but I didn't think they'd pair well with any of the other food items I wanted to try, so Bee stepped in for me.  In addition to Bee, two of my colleagues tried the lime-flavored grasshoppers and documented their experience in a video.

 Honey Bee Hawk photo by EL/SM.  YouTube video by 1986GetOverIt (that's our YouTube channel).

Unfortunately, due to the two-hour window we were given and even though I had several assistants, I only got to sample 14 items, which is not even half of what was offered.  Some long lines prevented us from trying items while the abundance of certain items (pulled pork was in six of the food choices) kept us from trying others.  Now there was one last thing that we couldn't pass up on no matter how long of a wait we had to endure.  And believe me, there was a wait for this one, as it was the only dessert item on the menu and the only one eaten live on television by Steve Gelbs.

I'm talking about the one and only Churro Dog.

Dessert of champions!  (EL/SM)

My homeboy Steve Gelbs was lucky enough to have the full-sized Churro Dog in Arizona.  I still haven't been to that ballpark so I had to settle for the smaller version, which I have called the Churro Pup.  The Churro Pup had frozen yogurt, chocolate sauce, caramel and whipped cream on top of a churro that was inside a chocolate iced donut.  Only three words could rightfully describe this delectable concoction.

Best.  Dessert.  Ever.

I can see why Steve Gelbs had to sample this one on live television.  It was too good not to share with the viewing audience.  It also explained why there so many Mets fans on the line to get themselves a Churro Pup.

#GIFparty + #tbt = Churro Dog! pic.twitter.com/chlMT4ezlC

— Steve Gelbs (@SteveGelbs) March 3, 2016

So that's it from the first MLB Food Fest.  I had so much fun sampling the "best" food items from all 30 major league ballparks.  And why is "best" in quotes?  Because the Mets only offered pastrami when they have so many other delicious dishes they could have shared with the baseball foodie world.  What's up with that?  No wonder that line was so short compared to most of the others.

In summary, I can't wait to go to ballparks in Texas, Houston, Pittsburgh and Arizona.  And Bee can't wait to go back to Seattle to get her dead insect groove on.

I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed eating it.  And thanks again to Ed Leyro, Taryn Cooper and Tracey Mapou for their assistance in getting me my - ahem - research material.  Now if you don't mind, I'm going to have my lunch, which I may have smuggled out of the food fest.  Pulled pork pierogie hoagie, anyone?

Wish I had a Churro Pup to wash down my lunch.  (EL/SM)