Last Look—Salvaging 10,000 Tons of Baseball History

March/April 2006

In 40 seasons, St. Louis’ Busch Stadium witnessed some of the biggest events in Major League Baseball history, including Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 62nd home run in 1998 and Cardinals World Championship wins in 1967 and 1982. The stadium was a shrine where millions of devoted fans, faithfully clad in Cardinal red, journeyed each year from throughout the Midwest to watch their heroes compete against some of the best players in baseball.

When the Cardinals announced plans to construct a new stadium for the 2006 season, the team gave fans one last year to celebrate the park, built in the circular, column-free style prevalent in the 1960s and 1970s and topped with a ring of arches echoing the shape of the nearby Gateway Arch. The team even raised $66,210 for local charities from fans who donated $10 each to have a chance to trigger the first wrecking ball.

In November 2005, that lucky fan launched the demolition of the 50,000-seat, two-deck structure. Composed primarily of concrete, stainless steel, and rebar, the stadium stretched more than 800 feet in diameter and covered more than 12 acres of land. Cash’s Scrap Metal & Iron partnered with Ahrens Contracting to take on the daunting task of removing from the demolition site more than 10,000 tons (more than 20 million pounds) of ferrous and nonferrous scrap.

Though the stadium was only one of about five large jobs Cash’s worked on in late 2005, we supplied the project with seven gondola scrap trailers at a time—more when needed. We hauled ferrous scrap to our 15-acre site on the Mississippi River south of downtown St. Louis. The nonferrous materials—mostly aluminum, copper, and brass—went to our headquarters just north of downtown.

At first it took us an average of 15 to 17 minutes to unload each 45-foot trailer, from the time it arrived on our scales, through unloading and reweighing, to its departure from the facility. As the job progressed, we cut that turnaround time to just nine minutes per trailer, allowing us to receive up to 30 loads a day. To keep the project running at an optimal pace, our crews initially worked seven days a week. Eventually we settled into 15-hour workdays, with a scheduled completion date in early March.

We processed most of the scrap from the haul through a combination of torching and shearing before distributing it to different mills around the country via barge and rail.

As a company with a 20-year history in St. Louis, it’s been exhilarating and highly rewarding to play a role in one of the city’s largest scrapping jobs, and we’re proud of what we’ve accomplished. When the Cardinals hear the umpire shout “Play ball!” at the 2006 home opener, they’ll do so with the wreckage of the old stadium as just a distant memory.

—Stuart Block, president of Cash’s Scrap Metal & Iron, a St. Louis-based processor and broker of ferrous and nonferrous metals.

In 40 seasons, St. Louis’ Busch Stadium witnessed some of the biggest events in Major League Baseball history, including Mark McGwire’s record-breaking 62nd home run in 1998 and Cardinals World Championship wins in 1967 and 1982. The stadium was a shrine where millions of devoted fans, faithfully clad in Cardinal red, journeyed each year from throughout the Midwest to watch their heroes compete against some of the best players in baseball.