On May 12, 1966, four days after the final baseball game played at Sportsman’s Park, Busch Memorial Stadium opened with the St. Louis Cardinals winning 4 -3 in 12 innings over the Atlanta Braves. In 1970 the grass field was replaced with Astro Turf to make the conversion from baseball to football easier. In 1995 after the last football game was played the St Louis Cardinals new ownership began reconstruction changes, replacing the Astro Turf with a grass field, along with other retrofitting changes to make it look like a baseball-only ballpark. The final game played at Busch Stadium was a playoff loss to the Houston Astros on October 19 2005.