Staying home for the baseball holiday

ST. LOUIS

Almost 50,000 fans crowded Busch Stadium when the Cardinals opened the season Monday, but there was a rare empty seat in Section 256, Row 10.

"Just under the overhang," Mary Welman Snow said. "Just out of the rain, just out of the sun."

That seat has belonged to Snow since 1966, when the Cardinals moved into their downtown home. For decades before that, she also had a season ticket at the club's former stadium, Sportsman's Park. While the team's records and Snow's own memories conflict, she's been a season ticket holder since at least 1945.

"You know, in all of these years, I never get tired of going," Snow said. "I can't wait. Every year, I can't wait. It's the game. I love the game."

But this year, Snow had family who came to visit on opening day and couldn't make the first game. It's surprising she still makes as many as she does, since she's lived in Cape Girardeau since 1979 and will turn 89 on June 8.

Until recently, Snow attended almost all of the Cardinals' 81 home games, driving two hours each way from Cape Girardeau to St. Louis. Last year, she guesses her total fell to between 40 and 50.

When not there in person, Snow is watching the club at home via satellite. In all, Snow estimates she has watched about 5,000 games and more than 40,000 innings.

"Every year, it gets harder to see the ball," Snow said. "Every year, it's harder to get somebody to take me to the games. Every year, I say this is the last year."

Snow said she first starting going to baseball games well before she bought her first season ticket in either 1942 or 1945. Her first games, when the city still had the Browns and the Cardinals, came shortly after she and her new husband first moved to St. Louis in 1935.

Snow was attending about 150 games a year in the late 1930s and she's likely one of the few Cardinals fans who have firsthand memories of Dizzy Dean.

"Dizzy Dean and Carl Hubbell," she said. "I loved those duels. One to nothing. Extra innings. That's baseball."

As for the departed Browns, she was in the stands on Aug. 19, 1951, when 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel was sent in to pinch-hit against the Detroit Tigers.

"Sure, we all enjoyed it," Snow said. "Here was this little man standing there at the plate."

The Cardinals have tried to acknowledge her loyalty and longevity, but Snow has demurred, not interested in the personal attention. Just being at the ball park, she said, is plenty.