American Cancer Society Day At Busch

It has been 3 years since I last attended an American Cancer Society Day at Busch Stadium.  We all know what happened in 2020.  The games were held last year, but both days I had something else going on.  This year I made it a point to keep the date for the Illinois and the Missouri games open.  

The Illinois game was held this past Sunday.  Gates opened at 9:00.  Anyone 16 years and older received a replica ring from the 1982 World Series.

There were 5 different players you could get.  I received Keith Hernandez, my wife Ozzie Smith.  My 14 year old son was left out.  These are pretty nice, but not really my thing.  I plan on trading them for a bobblehead I need.

The big draw of ACS Day is the autographs.  Last year only former players signed, but this year current players were included.  We managed to get through all the lines in the 1 hour 15 minute time frame.  4 current and 4 former players were signing.  Autographs were 1 per person, although I did see some people going through a line twice.  

All the former players who signed were in town for the 40 year anniversary of the 1982 World Series team.  Lahti was a key member of the bullpen that year.  We were one of the first he signed for, so he was quite talkative.  He told us a long story about how the 1983 Topps card is an airbrushed photo from a spring training game when he played for the Reds.  It is great hearing stories like this.

Donovan was signing at the same table as Lahti.  His line was by far the longest.  Good thing we did it first.  He does not have any licensed cards other than his 2022 Bowman that is already autographed, so I went with a 2019 Topps stadium card and a poster from Peoria.  

Genesis Cabrera was close to Donovan's table, so we jumped in his line.  Nice to get a player I never had a chance to see before.

Doug Bair was another reliever on the 1982 team

Pallante was also at Bair's table.  His line was the second longest after Donovan.  He was very polite and thanked us for coming.

It was Gallegos' birthday on Sunday.  Quite a few people were wishing him well.  

Mark Littell was yet another reliever on the 1982 team.  

We finished with our last autograph with about 5 minutes to spare.  Brummer was a backup catcher for the 1982 team.  He is also from my hometown.  

We had 2 hours from the time autographs ended to game time.  On Sundays the Cardinals handed out free ice cream, so we all enjoyed a popsicle.  We also had a free hot dog and soda that came with the price of our $20 bleacher tickets.  As for the game, we could not have seen a better one.  It only lasted 2 hours and 30 minutes.  The weather was a cool 82 degrees.  All the scoring was by home runs.  The Cardinals hit 4 including 2 by Pujols on the way to a 6-3 win over the Brewers.  About the only down side to the day was sitting in the parking lot for 30 minutes without moving.