Every ballpark in professional baseball has a backdrop whether the team likes it or not. It’s unclear to me if the designers and city planners make the effort to study the neighborhood before construction starts.

Even if you’ve never been to a particular ML ballpark, you are probably aware of the backdrop-especially if it’s an iconic strcucture. In some cases the ballpark itself is the major part of the skyline (The Green Monster, the manual scoreboard at Wrigley) while others are so connected with a particular city (The Gateway Arch).

Having just returned from a visit to STL, it’s hard not to have thoughts about the Arch and STL professional sports. The completion of the original arch coincided with the completion of Busch II. While not a Saarinenite, I marvel at the structure and the engineering behind the Gateway Arch. STL and the arch are the gateway to the west. Before the Giants and Dodgers moved to California in the late 1950’s, STL was the westernmost ML city. The Cards remained in town while the Browns moved east. Since then several ML franchises have settled in the wild west. In my last post, I mentioned that Jon Gruden threw out a first pitch c/o some wonderful online betting app or service. Whoever announced his presence to the fans probably expected a warmer reception. STL fans didn’t seem impressed with his Super Bowl coach title. That he didn’t win one in STL mattered-understandably. Ironically, STL is the gateway to the west in a more important sports aspect. The city lost two NFL franchises to the west in the Cardinals (Phoenix) and the Rams (Los Angelos) and hasn’t taken the snubs lightly.

What are your favorite skylines or backdrops?