Mark Lamping Quotations

I don't think we ever had a point where we didn't believe that the ballpark was going to be ready on Opening Day. The productivity of the workforce was at an incredibly high level, and we were blessed with great weather. We've been running ahead of schedule for quite some time.

I think there are some things that if you're from St. Louis you have an inferiority complex about. We don't have the great residential condominiums of downtown Chicago or we don't have the number of Fortune 500 companies as we used to have. But there are those things we think we do really, really well, like the Cardinals and KMOX and I think we take great pride in those things.

For nearly seven decades, Bank of America has been a dedicated and active partner of the Cardinals.

What we're trying to do is improve our ability to put the finest baseball team on the field.

We hope that they very quickly get familiar with the building and explore the ballpark, find their favorite spots. There are a lot of areas in the ballpark which provide great views of the playing field. We certainly encourage our fans to seek those out.

This game will serve as a 'dress rehearsal' for everyone -- the stadium operations staff, concessionaires, vendors, ushers, grounds crew, broadcasters, umpires, news media and our fans. We want our fans to have the best experience possible when we formally open on April 10 vs. Milwaukee.

This is a special time in the history of the team, our fans, our community and our players.

We want to have one last hurrah at Busch Stadium with the best fans in baseball. The weekend will be filled with heartfelt tributes to the most memorable athletes, coaches, broadcasters and plays that have made Cardinals baseball the tradition that it is today.

As far as the portions of the ballpark that are complete, that is complete at a very, very high level. Generally, the parts of the ballpark that still have work to do are those areas where we either do not have seating available or we only have a portion.

We get more complaints. it's clearly harder dealing with a lack of inventory.