Busch Stadium: The History, the Dimensions and How the Park Plays

By 4Baseball Staff · November 5, 2026 · 10 min read

A guide to Busch Stadium in St. Louis: the parks the Cardinals have called home since 1882, the symmetrical dimensions, what the open-air grass park does to a game, and how to plan a visit.

Busch Stadium in St. Louis is the third ballpark to carry that name, and the Cardinals played their first game there in 2006, the same season in which they won the World Series. It is a grass, open-air park with nearly symmetrical outfield dimensions and a view past the outfield wall of the Gateway Arch. Of all the parks in the National League, it is among the most even-handed: neither a hitter's paradise nor a pitcher's refuge.

That neutrality is the main thing to know about how the park plays, and it fits the club's history. The Cardinals have won 11 World Series in the modern era plus one in the 1880s, and they have done it with every kind of team: power-hitting lineups, speed-and-defense teams built for artificial turf, and rotations built around one or two great arms. This guide covers where the franchise played before 2006, the park's measurements from the site's reference data, how it plays, and some general advice for a visit.

For the people and seasons behind the building, see the history of the St. Louis Cardinals, the best Cardinals at every position and the best seasons and every October run. The club's current record is on the Cardinals team page, and the site keeps a reference page for the ballpark itself.

Five homes in 144 seasons

The historical record follows the Cardinals from 1882 through 2025, 144 seasons in all, and records the parks they used each year. The franchise was the St. Louis Brown Stockings in 1882, the Browns from 1883 through 1898, the Perfectos in 1899 and the Cardinals from 1900 on. Its homes are listed below, with the best attendance the historical record shows for any season in each.

There are also three transitional entries. The historical record lists 1920 as "Robison Field/Sportsman's Park IV" because the club moved in during that season, and 1966 as "Sportsman's Park IV/Busch Stadium II" for the same reason in the other direction. The first Sportsman's Park and the fourth are not the same building: the name was reused for different parks on or near the same site as the city and the game grew.

The attendance column is a small history of the sport in itself. A season total of 192,442 in the 1880s and 447,768 at Robison Field are figures from an era of small crowds and short schedules. By the time of Busch Stadium II, the club was drawing more than three and a half million over a season. The record in the database is 3,552,180 in 2007, the second full season of the current park, and it is the highest single-season attendance in the franchise's history.

Sportsman's Park and the Browns

For most of the twentieth century, the Cardinals shared a ballpark with another team. The American League's St. Louis Browns played at Sportsman's Park alongside the Cardinals for decades, and the two clubs were the only tenants of the same field until the Browns left St. Louis after the 1953 season and became the Baltimore Orioles. The Browns also explain an oddity in the Cardinals' postseason record: in 1944 the Cardinals beat the Browns four games to two in an all-St. Louis World Series, played entirely in one park. The historical record lists that opponent under the franchise that later became the Orioles.

In the same decades the Cardinals won National League pennants in 1926, 1928, 1930, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1943, 1944 and 1946. When the Cardinals won their first World Series of the modern era in 1926, beating the New York Yankees four games to three, the home games were at Sportsman's Park. The titles of 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944 and 1946 followed, and so did 1964, when they beat the Yankees again, four games to three, with Bob Gibson pitching the seventh game.

The dimensions of those older parks were very different from today's, and the hitters of the era produced the club's best batting averages: in the historical record, Rogers Hornsby leads the franchise at .359 (minimum 3,000 at-bats), Johnny Mize hit .336 and Stan Musial .331. Musial's 3,630 hits for the club, all from 1941 to 1963, are the most in franchise history.

Busch Stadium II and the speed era

The second Busch Stadium, which the Cardinals used from 1966 until 2005, was a round, concrete multi-purpose stadium of the type built in several cities in the 1960s and 1970s. It was built for baseball and football, and for much of its life it had an artificial surface. The effect on the team was dramatic, because a fast turf rewards speed, contact hitting and good defense.

That is the context for the Cardinals of the 1980s. Whitey Herzog managed the club from 1980 to 1990 (822 wins and 728 losses with the club, according to the database), and he built teams around the stadium's strengths: pitching depth, a strong defense at shortstop and center field, and runners who could take extra bases on a hard, fast surface. Lou Brock stole 888 bases with the club between 1964 and 1979, the franchise record; Vince Coleman added 549 between 1985 and 1990, and Ozzie Smith, 433. The Herzog-era numbers show how well the club's identity matched its park.

Busch Stadium II hosted the World Series wins of 1967 (against the Boston Red Sox, four games to three) and 1982 (against the Milwaukee Brewers, four games to three), plus the pennants of 1968, 1985 and 1987. It closed after the 2005 season, by which time Albert Pujols, who debuted in 2001, had won his first MVP award; he won again in 2008 and 2009. Pujols hit 469 home runs for the club between 2001 and 2022; Musial hit 475.

The measurements

The site's reference data gives these distances from home plate to the outfield wall.

The capacity in the same data is 44,383, the roof is open and the surface is grass. The elevation is 460 feet above sea level, which is modest and does not materially change how far a ball carries. The azimuth, 62 degrees, describes the direction from home plate to center field, which points to the east-northeast; this is the direction in which the Gateway Arch can be seen beyond the outfield from many seats.

The numbers are close to perfectly symmetrical. Left field is one foot longer than right, the two power alleys are the same distance, and center field is a clean 400 feet. If you compare it with Houston's park, where the left-field line is only 315 feet, or with Fenway Park, Busch Stadium looks like a textbook. The upshot is that batters of both hands are treated alike, which is a better test of the hitter than of the park.

How the park plays

Park factors, which compare scoring at home with scoring on the road, change each year and are not part of the historical record, so this guide does not quote one. What the dimensions and the climate suggest is a close-to-neutral park. The foul poles are at ordinary distances, the power alleys are ordinary, and the center-field fence is neither short nor deep by modern standards. The elevation is low, so the air offers no special help to fly balls.

The weather does add some variety. St. Louis summers are hot and humid, and the park is open to the sky, so the ball can carry a little farther in July than in April, while cool spring and fall evenings take some distance off. Rain can delay or postpone games, which is a difference from the roofed parks in Houston, Milwaukee and a few other cities. If you are traveling to a game, check the forecast, because there is no roof to protect you or the schedule.

For fantasy players, a neutral park is good news because it does not distort the numbers. A Cardinal who hits well at home is probably a good hitter, and a pitcher who is stingy at Busch is probably a good pitcher, with less of the park adjustment that players in Colorado or Texas require. Pitchers who keep the ball on the ground do well anywhere, and the Cardinals' history of great ground-ball pitchers, from Gibson to the recent group, fits that profile.

Eleven titles in the modern era

Few franchises have a record as even as the Cardinals': 11,363 wins and 10,486 losses in the database, a winning percentage of .520. They have won 23 pennants and 12 World Series, one of the titles (1886) before the modern World Series began in 1903. Many of the later titles came from different roster types, and the park did little to disguise which was which.

The 1942 team went 106-48, the best record in the club's modern history, and the 1943 and 1944 clubs won 105 games each; the 1944 team won the World Series. The Gibson-era clubs of 1964, 1967 and 1968 won two titles and lost a Series in seven games, and the Herzog clubs of the 1980s won the 1982 title and lost in seven games in 1985 and 1987. The historical record puts the 2006 title against Detroit at four games to one and the 2011 title against Texas at four games to three.

The 2011 title is the one most associated with Busch Stadium III. Game 6 of that Series was played in St. Louis, and it is remembered as one of the great games in World Series history, ending with a home run by David Freese in the eleventh inning to force a Game 7. The Cardinals won that seventh game to take the Series. The 2013 team won the pennant again and lost the World Series to Boston.

The club's greats

No single park produced the franchise's leaders, because they played in five different ones. The career leaders for the club, from the historical record, are:

Among players of the current park era, Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina and Adam Wainwright are the central figures. Molina collected 2,168 hits for the club from 2004 to 2022 and Wainwright won 200 games with 2,202 strikeouts from 2005 to 2023. Pujols stands second only to Musial in club home runs and RBI. The Hall of Fame players with the longest service to the club include Musial (22 seasons), Jesse Haines (18), Gibson (17) and Brock (16).

The Cardinals have 21 MVP awards in the database, including three each for Musial and Pujols, and Gibson won two Cy Young Awards, in 1968 and 1970. The latest MVP on the list is Paul Goldschmidt, in 2022. The club's rookie-of-the-year line runs from Wally Moon in 1954 to Pujols in 2001.

Rivals and neighbors

The park sits in the National League Central, a division whose members have all had a long relationship with St. Louis. The Chicago Cubs, a few hours up the road, are the traditional rival, and series against them are among the best-attended of the year. For the other side of that matchup, see the Cubs franchise history. The Cincinnati Reds, whose own story is told in the Reds franchise history, and the Milwaukee Brewers, covered in the Brewers history, complete the division with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The Cardinals met the Brewers in the 1982 World Series, when Milwaukee was an American League club, and the two teams were later placed in the same division. The Cardinals and the Houston Astros played two memorable National League Championship Series, in 2004 (a seven-game win for St. Louis) and 2005 (a six-game win for Houston), both recorded in the historical postseason table. That is the kind of connection the historical postseason table makes visible at a glance.

Planning a visit

The park is downtown, close to the Arch and the riverfront, and a visit works better with a little planning. These are general suggestions; check the club's official site for current rules, because policies change.

• Check the forecast. The park is open-air, summer heat and humidity are real, and rain can delay or postpone a game.
• Arrive early. Gates open before first pitch, and early arrival gives you time to see the surroundings, look at the statues outside and watch batting practice.
• Know the bag rules. Most major-league parks restrict the size and type of bag allowed in. Look up the current policy first.
• Pick your section for the sun. In an open-air park, the shaded side of the seating bowl on a hot afternoon is worth finding out about when you choose seats.
• Plan the trip home. Parking and transit around a downtown stadium are crowded after the game. Decide beforehand which you will use and check current information on the club's site.
• Look at accessibility information. The club publishes details about accessible seating and services.

This guide does not list ticket prices, food or transit schedules, because they change and the official source is the one to trust.

Common questions

When did the current Busch Stadium open? The historical record shows the Cardinals using Busch Stadium III from the 2006 season; the previous Busch Stadium was used from 1966 to 2005.

How big is it? The site's reference data gives 336 feet to left, 375 to left-center, 400 to center, 375 to right-center and 335 to right, with a capacity of 44,383.

Is it a hitter's park or a pitcher's park? The dimensions and the elevation point to a fairly neutral park. Check a current park-factor table, which changes from year to year, for the latest numbers.

Does it have a roof? No. The roof entry in the reference data is open, so weather can delay or postpone games.

Where did the Cardinals play before 2006? Busch Stadium II from 1966 or 1967 to 2005, Sportsman's Park from 1921 to 1965, Robison Field from 1893 to 1919, and the first Sportsman's Park in the 1880s.

How many World Series have the Cardinals won? Twelve titles are in the historical record: 1886, 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006 and 2011.

Where to go next

Start with the Cardinals team page for the current record and the next game, then the Busch Stadium page for the reference data. For the full story of the franchise read the history of the St. Louis Cardinals, and for the championships in context, see the history of the World Series and the Cardinals topic page for current news.