Tarps Off

On May 15, a group of Stephen F. Austin club baseball players showed up to Busch Stadium on a Friday night in May, found an empty section in right field, looked at each other, and decided they needed to take their shirts off.

Someone did. Then more did. Then hundreds did. They waved their shirts like rally towels, sang “Mr. Brightside,” and stayed loud through 11 innings until Ivan Herrera punched a walk-off three-run homer in the 10th to beat the Pirates, then ripped his own jersey off and twirled it in celebration.

Tarps Off was born.

Over the past three seasons, Cardinals attendance had been declining. This was supposed to be a rebuilding year. The club is surprisingly among the NL Central contenders, but nobody had a script for what was happening in right field. The Cardinals officially endorsed the movement, dedicating the upper right-field bleachers to Tarps Off fans and inviting any ticket holder willing to match the energy.

The Cardinals got lucky. It was a confluence of a younger roster playing with something to prove, a fanbase that was maybe a little bored and waiting for permission to be loud again, and a bunch of college kids who said screw it and took their shirts off. The Athletic put it well: “Tarps Off is what happens when a younger, louder roster and the newer, more appealing innovations in the game appeal to a demographic baseball has been desperate to woo. In St. Louis, every waved shirt feels like a victory.”

The sport has been chasing the young fan for a generation now. Pitch clocks, bigger bases, rule changes that actually work. Some of it has helped. None of it looked like this. It didn’t come from a focus group. It came from a Friday night when some college dudes decided to make some noise.