My wife hails from St. Louis, the Gateway to the West. Technically, she is from a suburb about 20 minutes out of the city, but tomayto-tomahto (cue angry St. Louisans).
Through our almost 9 years together, we have made the trek from various parts of Tennessee to St. Louis countless times. The conference that Freed-Hardeman’s baseball team participated in during my career was based in St. Louis, so nearly every weekend road trip included an odyssey to The 314. It was a coin flip if we took a charter bus or two 15 passenger sprinter vans… Regardless of the vessel enabling our travels, the primary travel rule stayed the same: no deuces on the bus, no matter how long the trip. Small college ball ain’t for the weak.
My wife, her family, and I have done many fun things in St. Louis and the surrounding area. Her family has called the area home for her entire life, plus some, after all. We’ve gone to the St. Louis Zoo countless times, attended several Cardinals and Blues games, explored several BBQ restaurants (Sugarfire is the best, FYI), visited the Botanical Gardens and HIstoric Downtown St. Charles, just to name a few.
However, on our most recent visit, we were able to explore a new attraction that had just opened within the last year: The Rawlings Experience @ Westport Plaza.
Now, St. Louis, among other things, is a baseball town. The Cardinals are the pride and joy of the ‘Lou, having won 11 World Series titles, 2nd amongst MLB franchises. My in-laws may argue the Blues, the city’s NHL franchise, are a bigger deal, but this is a baseball blog and I get to choose what I write! Love ya, Chris & Tammy! Rawlings HQ is based St. Louis and the company is a titan in the baseball industry. The Rawlings Experience was free to visit and did not require a reservation, which was tight. From what I gathered, it was created to give the general public more access and insight into what goes into the Rawlings brand and its impact on the game of baseball.
Rawlings, while having arms in every aspect of the game, is known for one paragon: gloves. Now, for anyone who knows the game, a ball player cares intimately about his glove. The only relationships he may carry that outweigh his glove are with the Good Lord above, his significant other, and his children. End of list. Bats break, cleats change, sunglasses and hats are exchanged. But gloves are eternal (melodramatic). You don’t put your hand in another man’s glove, you don’t fold it, you don’t flare it in another direction, you don’t pull the strings. You just don’t touch it. It’s a special bond between a man and his leather.
At The Rawlings Experience, they have a massive glove museum, numerous position based glove walls, and the opportunity to create a fully customized glove from scratch. Rawlings sponsors the Gold Glove Award at the MLB & all college levels. The Experience includes a room dedicated to some of the best winners of all time and the gloves that they have used along the way, a very cool experience for a baseball junkie.
In addition to the gloves, there are also entire bat walls, floors filled with unique apparel and baseball equipment, insight into how the MLB baseball is designed, and HitTrax cages to test out various bats that they have on site. It was a very fun experience, especially factoring in the nature of it being free and convenient to visit at your leisure. With a few restaurant options and a soda shop also housed at West Port Plaza, you can spend a good chunk of your day there. Eventually, I would love to go back to see if they expand or simply change out the displays for fresh items. If you’re a baseball lover and in the area, I would block off an hour or two to stop by.