Take Me Out to the Nosebleeds

Photo Credit Yehteh WHEN I was a kid, if I had completed my week’s worth of chores, my dad had a reward for me. He’d wake me up at 6 a.m. on Sunday and say: “Good work this week. Get in the car.” We’d pack the cooler, turn the radio to KMOX and drive the two-plus hours from central Illinois to the old Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Then we would wait in line.

The old Busch Stadium — a massive concrete AstroTurf-ed monolith, just as charming as its current successor, the “new” Busch Stadium — had a policy: General-admission tickets to the bleachers were sold two hours before first pitch, and they cost only six bucks. For an electrician from farm country Illinois trying to get his son into…