Maybe it’s the emptiness.
Busch Stadium is vacant for these Cardinals home games. The only fans spotted from the press box are the folks squinting toward the stadium from Ballpark Village’s rooftop, plus the few determined pedestrians peering through the street-level stadium gates — before the blue-shirted security guards shoo them along.
There is no Kiss Cam, no wave, no scoreboard shenanigans, no distractions.
Maybe it’s the silence. The stadium speakers play music during breaks in action, and there’s that generic crowd noise that is pumped in to take the edge off the eerie silence, but that too quickly fades, so much so that a starting pitcher can hear when his replacement stirs in the bullpen.