ST. LOUIS — It was a St. Louis daydream for 52 years: a victory parade down Market Street.
Saturday it became a reality.
But just how big were the crowds down Market Street and around the Gateway Arch?
Some wild estimates have floated the idea of one million fans in St. Louis.
Denis Beganovic, a land-use planner, said it's likely a little less.
He said, using a Poynter Institute model on estimating crowd sizes, that the sea of blue likely peaked at 2:30 p.m. on Saturday with about 390,000 fans downtown.
Within that number, his math suggests 71,000 filled the Arch grounds and 16,000 packed Luther Ely Smith Park.
So how does that compare with other St. Louis celebrations?
St. Louis Rams brought out about 100,000 for their Victory Parade.
The most recent Cardinals World Series win in 2011, saw 150,000 Redbird revelers.
Maybe that just goes to show, even after 52 years, the celebration alone was well worth the wait.