Busch Stadium outfield grass got thorough beating Saturday during FCS college football game

For whatever reason -- money? -- the Cardinals decided to let Football Championship Series (FCS) schools Southern Illinois University and Southeast Missouri State University play a college football game Saturday afternoon on the outfield grass at Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. The game was attended by only 14,618 and it left the field at “Baseball Heaven” in need of a full sod replacement.

Joe Strauss of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch was on the scene and wrote about the damage:

Worst case: Pretty much what happened. Thursday night’s rain and Friday’s day-long soaker followed an extended smoldering and dry period that had left the outfield a slip-and-slide zone. Conditions were dicey enough that the Cardinals and the two schools discussed canceling the event, which would have forced SEMO to host the game Sunday. Recent flooding in Colorado imperiled some grass farms just as the Cardinals decided they would need 13 truckloads of sod.

Head groundskeeper Bill Findley is racing against the clock to get the field back into baseball shape with the Cards due back in town Monday for the start of a six-game season-ending homestand against the Nationals and Cubs. Postseason games will follow, and over 100,000 square feet of new grass has to take hold.

Matt Holliday spoke openly about his opinion of the event Saturday to lead beat writer Derrick Goold of the Post-Dispatch: “It was already kicking up when the baseball players were on it,” said the Cardinals’ starting left fielder. “It’s something you think about — the condition of the field, how it’s going to play and what a football game would do to that. And you think about at this point of the season, being in a pennant chase and the timing of it. You don’t want anything to keep the field from being at its best.”

Follow @drewsilv