The Gateway Grizzlies are a professional, minor league baseball team affiliated with the Frontier League. While the team may be a far cry from their World Champion neighbors across the river, the Grizzlies were the 2003 league champions, and ballgames here retain a conspicuously professional feel at a fraction of the cost of Cardinals’ tickets. Founded in 2001, the team played its first year at Sauget Field (a small, single-bleacher dirt field off Highway 3) before moving to its current stadium for the 2002 season. While this park is of new construction, baseball culture in the area dates to the 1940s, when employees of Monsanto formed a ball club for inter-company play. Ironically, the new park is carpeted with natural grass rather than AstroTurf (née ChemGrass), one of Monsanto’s most successful material spin-offs.