St. Louis says goodbye to Busch Stadium

The Cardinals' dream season ended early against the Astros.
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Instead of altering the NL championship series, Albert Pujols' dramatic Game 5 home run simply gave the St. Louis Cardinals a chance to play a goodbye game at Busch Stadium.
Any momentum provided by Pujols' drive was halted by the brilliant pitching of Roy Oswalt and the Houston Astros' bullpen in a 5-1 Game 6 loss on Wednesday night. Pujols' homer, it turned out, was the last big hit by his 100-win team in a season that again failed to deliver on considerable promise.
The Cardinals' dream of erasing last fall's bitter memory, when they were swept by the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, ended two games short. So short, in fact, that the Astros didn't even need Brad Lidge, the goat of Game 5.
As usual, the team's 40-year-old stadium was filled with red-clad faithful. For the final time they filed out, most of them silently, after the Cardinals were mastered by Houston pitching yet again while getting a subpar start from 16-game winner Mark Mulder.
Many of the fans headed for the exits after Pujols lined out to short for the final out in the eighth.
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