Rival announcers question Cardinals fans

As Busch Stadium continues to set record lows for St. Louis Cardinals attendance, San Diego Padres announcers Don Orsillo and Mark Grant were stunned by the turnout.

The Cardinals aren’t great this season, but they were buyers at the trade deadline and were sitting right at .500 before welcoming the Padres to St. Louis begin a four-game series Monday night. Their playoff hopes have been slipping, sitting at five games back of the Atlanta Braves for the final Wild Card spot, with three more teams to hurdle to get there.

Bleak? Sure. But it’s not like we’re talking about the Chicago White Sox here. Surely there’s enough hope to lure the “best fans in baseball” to Busch Stadium to cheer their beloved Redbirds. The turnstiles, however, have been telling a different story, one that Orsillo and Grant took note of.

“Don, I’ll be honest with you, I want to get this right out of the way,” Grant said as he looked at the Busch Stadium crowd in the first inning Monday night. “We are in St. Louis, Busch Stadium. This is not the Busch Stadium I’m used to. Late August, early September, usually it’s packed, the Redbirds are in the race. It is a different vibe here.”

“It’s shocking,” Orsillo concurred. “Not used to this, ever.”

No one is. Because excluding COVID-restricted seasons, the Cardinals are in the midst of setting record lows for attendance this season. Last Wednesday, the “official” crowd of 30,002 was the lowest at the new Busch Stadium since it opened in 2006. And in the following days, the Cardinals have continued to break their own record, failing to top 30,000 fans for three consecutive games. Earlier in the month, Busch Stadium attracted more than 40,000 fans in back-to-back games on a Saturday and Sunday against the Los Angeles Dodgers, but we’ll call that the Shohei Ohtani effect.

Monday night’s “official” attendance was 28,697, but as cameras panned the first inning crowd while Grant took note of the shockingly empty Busch Stadium, estimating 10,000 fans in the seats would be generous. Blame it on the product, blame it on management or ownership. Whatever the reasoning is, Orsillo and Grant were shocked to learn that even the “best fans in baseball” have a breaking point.

[ Cardinals Talk ]

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