St. Louis Cardinals baseball has run stale, having missed the MLB postseason for the past three seasons.
A club baseball team from Stephen F. Austin won’t stand for it a moment longer.
Bryce Bradford and Caleb Cummings were the first to take their shirts off in the right-field bleachers at Busch Stadium on Friday night, as the Cardinals beat the Kansas City Royals in 11 innings.
“So then it just spread, and then there are a few kids in the section next to us who came to join,” Cummings told Benjamin Hochman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “And soon, I see people from the ages of like 80 years old to kids doing it. Dads coming over with their kids, running over with their shirts off.”
The movement was officially dubbed “tarps off,” and it went viral enough to catch the Cardinals’ attention. Manager Oli Marmol bought out the now-named “Tarps Off” section for the weekend.
“Whoever started that in right field, I’ll do whatever I need to do to make sure they come every game because that was awesome,” Marmol said in his postgame presser on Friday night.
When asked if he and his players could sense it in the dugout, Marmol said, “Are you kidding me? Yeah, you can feel it, man. It’s awesome, and it creates an environment where […] it’s making it a tough place for other teams to come in and play.”
The Cardinals also featured them on social media:
After the Cardinals defeated the Royals, 4-2, on Saturday afternoon, Marmol invited the original “Tarps Off” crew into the clubhouse to meet and celebrate with the team:
The Cardinals (27-18) will close out their series with the Royals on Sunday afternoon before hosting the Pittsburgh Pirates for a three-game series next week. They have a six-game road trip after that, but it’ll be fascinating to see if “Tarps Off” fades or comes back stronger than ever when the Cardinals host the Chicago Cubs, their bitter rival, to close out May.
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