The arrogance of Mozeliak and the DeWitts is reflected in the empty seats at Busch Stadium

Despite season-opening sweep, Cardinals fans don't pack Busch Stadium for all three games.

Back in the day, or a few years ago, St. Louis baseball fans flooded Busch Stadium with enormous crowds. The sea of red wasn’t just filled with red seats; families packed the stadium and brought their friends along too. A free ticket was a commodity, rather than an everyday certainty. When the final tally surpassed the 40,000 mark, the reality was a whole house, not just paid ticket sales. 2025, and the past few years for that matter, have told a different tale.

After a decade of lackluster (at least by Cardinals baseball standards), the home stadium is no longer packed to the gills with people. In its place is a sea of red empty seats, waiting for a fan to come sit and fill the space for a few hours. While Thursday’s home opener ended up being pretty full, those tickets were most likely giveaways at the last minute or given to friends of employees. Up until a few days before the first pitch, at least 13,000 tickets remained unsold for the first home game of the year.

Saturday and Sunday’s games were far less attended, which can be a sign of bad weather or the school's activities preparing for its return following spring break. My friend and Buffet subscriber, Jeff Abney, took this picture right before first pitch on Sunday.

That’s a blunt indication that it’ll take more than an impressive start to the season for the full allotment of fans to come back downtown for ballgame. More often than not last season, this was the look for most weekday games. For a weekend game to show this small of an amount points directly to the front office and their lack of attentiveness and outright short-sighted behavior over the past few years. Gone are the legitimate stars in Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina, and its place are a younger, unknown group of players that the team hopes will grow into marketable stars.

Hope, as Andy Dufrane will tell you, takes time to grow. Sometimes, the waiting period is years instead of months. The disdain can be pointed directly at two parties: John Mozeliak and the DeWitt ownership. The former is the architect of the current mess, while the latter let the chaos continue on far past its fresh date. If the team were a bag of deli meat, it’s been sitting in the fridge for weeks instead of the desired one-week consume date. Mozeliak completed his last offseason with the precision and energy of Lee Smith before the ninth inning. In other words, it was downright sleepy.

The hollowness of his final offseason pales in comparison to the arrogance shown by Bill DeWitt Jr. and Bill DeWitt III in some of their comments over the past two years, including the latter scoffing at the idea of not showing up leading to some sort of change. Well, fellas, the fans aren’t ready to come back yet. While the excuses will run rampant-kids in school or bad weather-the switch to more packed crowds won’t be automatic when the weather heats up. This will take some considerable time.

The fact that the team doesn’t have a legit superstar player doesn’t help. With no offense to Nolan Arenado or Sonny Gray, they’re not players that thousands flock to see--at least not at this point in their respective careers. Masyn Winn, Willson Contreras, and Lars Nootbaar are nice talents, but they aren’t going to pull the kids away from their video games and moms from their gardening tasks. Again, it’ll be a little bit before the sun rises and sets on a full showing of Cardinal nation. It’s what it is, and it’s not pretty or something to write home about.

But Mozeliak and his bosses are sleeping in the bed they designed. They’ve spent years hyping up prospects that they routinely screw over or mishandle. Jordan Walker should have been moved to right field in the minors the second Nolan Arenado was signed, but the team blew all their cash on those big unnecessary deals that they forgot about hiring special instructors like the rest of the teams in the Major Leagues. They boosted Nolan Gorman up like he was a can’t miss slugger; it’s too bad he misses plenty with strikeouts. Granted, he’s looked solid in a handful of at bats early on, but the results need to continue for belief to be restored.

The same goes for the team’s performance in correlation to tickets sold. Mozeliak didn’t do himself any favors by expressing his disappointment in the early showing of crowds. When the standards get set high and you plop a giant World Series trophy statue in your theme park across the street, you don’t get to take a few seasons off without a response. Are fans spoiled around here? Yes. It’s been that way for a while, so don’t expect it to change. I’d love for the fans to show up, but telling others how to be a fan is a fight I’ve lost a few too many times-especially coming from a guy who watches games from the confines of his home.

What will it make it change? Mozeliak leaving, and fans embracing Chaim Bloom. Let’s hope he has some charisma or at least offers answers without the smugness of a guy who walked out of the Ritz Carlton cigar lounge. If he’s a solid leader and good spokesperson who talks from the heart with a blunt stick, things will improve and crowds will return. The DeWitts taking more of a backseat will also help. Whenever they do open their mouths, it’s either contradicting previous statements or belittling their paying customers. Less is more, gents. Let Bloom do the talking, and how you spend money do the walking.

Of course, more winning always helps bring more birds to the yard. Keep putting up entertaining efforts like the Twins series, and the excuses will fall by the wayside. Just don’t act shocked that the fans aren’t exactly ready to embrace the sort-of competitive nature all at once. Strip it down, delete Mo, and rebuild from there with Chaim.

Until then, don’t act shocked by the gate performance. It’s not just the fans. The rest of the league thinks the past 5-10 years have been a joke.