Ryan hosted the most recent Automattic Happiness Team gathering here in St. Louis, and one of their scheduled activities was a trip to Busch Stadium to see a Cardinals game, from the vantage point of a party suite. There was enough space for the children and me to tag along, and it was a really cool, once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Each of the suites is named after a former Cardinal star. We were in the Bob Gibson room, which was right next door to the Ozzie Smith room. Turkey was a little disappointed we couldn’t be in Ozzie’s room, because Ozzie is his favorite Cardinal, but I think he decided the Gibson room was pretty OK, too!

When we got there, our bartender was already waiting for us. We had unlimited access to Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Lemonade, water, and beer, although the beer wasn’t served the whole time we were there. She was very friendly, did an amazing job of remembering everybody’s names, (which I found to be very impressive), and was just fun to be around during the game.

The decorations in the room were very cool. In addition to the many photos of Bob Gibson and information about his playing career, there were also tables that looked liked baseballs, and chairs with the Cardinals logo carved on the backs. Looking across the row of party suites in the stadium, the walls of the rooms alternated red and white paint jobs, which looked very cool from the outside.

Then there was the food. We had an unlimited buffet that started a half-hour before the game, and lasted for two hours. The items included a nacho bar, (yum!), hot dogs and brats, (complete with sauerkraut–also yum!), brisket, and pasta, plus cookies and brownies for dessert. Another employee was responsible for setting up the food, and checking back periodically to make sure we had enough of everything–she also did an awesome job!

The view was also pretty good. There were 24 outdoor padded seats, (the suite area can hold up to 32, including those outside), and the rest of the seats were inside. In addition to the seats at the baseball tables, there was also a row of seats directly in front of the windows, and those seats had just as good of a view as those that were outside. The only thing that was hard to see from where we were at was the scoreboard–the overhang, (which would have been fantastic in the event of rain), obscured a good part of it. We did have an amazing ariel view of the bullpen, though–I’m not sure I’ve ever really seen the bullpen like that before!

The view from inside the suite.