The Stephen F. Austin club baseball team may not be allowed to leave St. Louis if the Cardinals continue feeding off the energy the group has brought to Busch Stadium over the past 48 hours.
After saying “screw it” and moving to an empty section and taking their shirts off to fire up the Cardinals during their extra-innings win over the Kansas City Royals on Friday night, the boys were back and the tarps remained off for Saturday’s afternoon game, which resulted in a third straight victory.
Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol made sure the energy that Busch Stadium saw on Friday returned on Saturday. He bought out the entire right-field section that the SFA team sat in and the team distributed those tickets free of charge for this weekend’s game.
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“Easily the most hyped I’ve ever been for a day game — probably any game — in my life,” Marmol said afterward.
After the Cardinals’ 4-2 win on Saturday, the SFA team, which was playing in the nearby National Club Baseball Association DII World Series this week, made it inside the clubhouse where shirts were obviously banned.
“We came here after our game to have a great time,” said SFA player Bryce Bradford, via Brandon Kiley of 101 ESPN, during Friday’s game. “It got close and we were like, ‘Screw it, let’s go to an empty section and take off our shirts.’ Everyone was kind of scared at first. I was like, ‘Screw it, I’ll do it’ and took off my shirt.”
The trend spread in St. Louis as during Saturday’s UFL game between the St. Louis Battlehawks and Houston Gambler the tarps were also off.
Marmol was so impressed by what he saw Friday night, he started his postgame press conference by saying he would do whatever he needed to make sure they were at every game. “Because that was awesome. Not only them, but everybody that showed up today. That was a fun environment,” he said.
The atmosphere in the stadium was infectious and Marmol wanted to make sure his team had every bit of home-field advantage it could get.
“It creates an environment where, it’s not only filling this place up, it’s making it a tough place for other teams to come in and play,” Marmol said. “That was pretty damn cool. I’ll sign up for that any day.”
Marmol joked on Saturday that he was willing to go broke if buying tickets led to more wins. The Cardinals have four more home games during this six-game homestand. No word if the SFA team will remain in town when the Pittsburgh Pirates come to visit.
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