After 5: World Series Stories

Moxie Cinema owners Dan and Nicole Chilton were among the fans at Game 4 in the new Busch Stadium in St. Louis. Dan Chilton, a self-professed “lifelong Cardinals fan,” purchased two tickets on eBay for $400 each.

“I pretty much exhausted my savings buying these tickets,” Chilton said, adding that he didn’t have the time or resources to purchase tickets when the Cards were in the 2004 World Series. “But it was well worth it to see my team win.”

Springfield entrepreneur Jeff Wasson, founder of travel Web site www.gusto.com, went to all three games in St. Louis, scoring tickets through a friend who worked with Fox Television, which broadcast the baseball playoffs.

Fox TV cameras caught Wasson and two friends during Game 4 wearing Gusto! T-shirts at their home run porch seats in right field.

“We tried to get a little publicity on TV, and I guess it worked,” Wasson said.

While Wasson and Chilton attended their first World Series, Missouri State University Athletic Director Bill Rowe is a Series veteran.

Rowe, who also attended Game 4, has attended at least one game from every World Series the Cardinals have been in since 1964 – that’s eight: 1964, 1967, 1968, 1982, 1985, 1987, 2004 and this year.

“I just have a great baseball interest,” said Rowe, who also was a guest of John Q. Hammons when Hammons threw out the ceremonial first pitch at Game 2 in Detroit. “I grew up in the old days – there was one radio in our farm house (in Marionville), and it was always tuned to the St. Louis Cardinals.”

Interest in the sport seemingly always goes back to boyhood memories.

Even Hammons, a longtime baseball fan and visitor to Cincinnati Reds spring training for the last 50 years, called his ceremonial first pitch “a lifelong dream I’ve had since I was a boy.”

Hammons was selected for his longstanding affiliation with Holiday Inn Hotels, the official hotel of Major League Baseball.

Rowe received his 2006 World Series Game 4 tickets – row 10, section 140 on the first-base side – through the Missouri Valley Conference, which owns season tickets at Busch.

The face value on the cheapest tickets was about $200, and tickets bought secondhand easily cost three to four times as much. For many, though, price isn’t a factor for the World Series.

“It was now or never,” Chilton said. “It may be another 24 years before they win another championship, so I wanted to make sure I could be a part of it.”

Wasson said the experience was like a regular game, only more exciting.

“People came to the stadium earlier and stayed later,” Wasson said. “It was more of an event than a baseball game.”

Rowe said that’s the norm when a team gets to this stage.

“A Series game is more like an inning when they’re having a rally in the regular season,” said Rowe, who made four Division II World Series appearances with the Bears in his 19 years as coach. “People are more wired for it. They’re either chanting or yelling or standing up. Their faces are painted. They’re more excited for it because they know what’s at stake.”[[In-content Ad]]