The Cardinals’ Tarps Off section: reviewed!

One in an occasional series of irreverent reviews designed to help people navigate St. Louis in all its quirky glory.

It’s no secret that attendance at Cardinals games is way down, and while the internet has no shortage of theories as to why, I can only tell you definitively why I stopped going: I hate wearing clothes in public.

But much like how society has made way for marijuana superstores and online sports gambling, the social mores of Busch Stadium have crumbled, and the Cardinals are now allowing the Best Male Fans in Baseball to attend the games topless, so long as they sit in the searing sunlight of the right field bleachers. Curious to see what the experience was like for myself, I lied to my wife about putting on sunscreen and made my way downtown.

While people like to complain about the cost of going to the ballpark, the price I paid to get into the stadium was a whopping $8.50. Granted, my actual assigned seat was located somewhere inside the utility closet where they chain up Fredbird in between games, but it seems like they allow anyone willing to take their shirt off to sit in the so-called “Tarps Off” section, so I had no reason not to opt for the cheapest ticket.

My first impressions of the section were generally in line with my expectations. I was not surprised to find myself surrounded by several rows of loud, performative college kids who were either too young to purchase alcohol, or couldn’t yet procure the quantities they were looking for, and were perfectly content passing around the same 1-liter bottle of diluted Dr. Pepper. These kids were less amused with the game than with each other. Baseball was merely the theme of their party, and they were always on the lookout for anything in front of them to direct their collective attention. 

For instance, if someone from a different section happened to wander into the walkway in front of us, the entire gallery would burst into a chant of “TAKE IT OFF, TAKE IT OFF!” This chant was less sinister than it sounds, but unsurprisingly, fewer and fewer people walked by as the game went on. I was curious how the men would react if a woman took this route, but, if you can believe it, no woman ever did.

There were, however, women already in this section, albeit very few. One young woman in a black tube top was with the core group of young men, participating in all of the chants and community swigs. There was also a fully clothed woman sitting a few rows behind us and a very little girl sitting in my row next to my six-year-old son, but no one ever came close to pestering any of them.

It was this sort of social restraint that surprised me the most. Normally a group of young rowdy men in public will eventually one-up each other into oblivion, spilling their buffoonery out onto any bystanders within their vicinity, but here the chaos generally remained contained and was self-policing. Even the scrawny albino dude in front of me who was clearly looking for trouble (an annoyed beer guy dubbed him Draco Malfoy after he asked for a “cold one”) was quickly shut down after initiating a verbal altercation. The section turned on him and chanted “GET HIM OUT, GET HIM OUT,” to which little Draco feigned an apology and was allowed to remain, which honestly was much more humiliating for him than had he actually left. I later asked the nearby security guard who was supervising the section if the crowd ever got out of control and he said, “Nah, they’re always fine.”

But while everyone in the stands seemed safe from being picked on by the horde of braying bros, the players on the field were not. While a few futile attempts were aimed at the opposing team’s batters, who were no less than a mile out of earshot, the focus of the crowd’s taunts landed mainly on the shoulders of whoever was standing in nearby right field.

The Milwaukee Brewers’ Sal Frelick particularly took a vicious verbal beating. My friend and fellow writer Nick Straatman was especially sadistic, very loudly yelling things that were both true and hurtful such as “SAM FRELICK! YOUR BATTING AVERAGE IS ONE SIXTY FIVE!” followed up by a “SAM FRELICK! YOUR BATTING AVERAGE IS NOW BELOOOOOW ONE SIXTY FIVE” after the fielder failed to get a hit in the previous inning. After the struggling player heard my friend scream, “THE MINORS ARE CALLING YOOOUUUU SAM FRELICK,” the outfielder threw a ball into the stands in an attempt to win us over, prompting the crowd to begin chanting, “THROW IT BACK! THROW IT BACK!” It was shortly after this Mr. Frelick was subbed out of the game, presumedly because he could not stop weeping.

Also playing in right field: Jordan Walker. The fans also made their presence known to him in a way that bordered on ironic. They chanted his name in an uninspired droll. They sang “You Are My Sunshine,” only replacing “sunshine” with “Walker,” and regularly chanted “MVP” so frequently, it seemed as if they were intentionally trying to distract him.

And Walker has a coldness to him that already reads like he’s kind of annoyed by everything, so as he champed his gum and took sideways glances into the bleachers, it really seemed like he was the least enthusiastic person in all of St. Louis about the Naked Man section. But at what seemed to be the exact precise moment, he acknowledged the crowd behind him and chucked a couple balls in our direction in such an un-Frelick-y way that it made everyone standing there feel genuinely appreciated. The entire section stopped bothering him after that. Walker had figured out how to win the section just like he had figured out how to win the Home Run Derby. St. Louis is lucky to have him.

As the game wore on into the later innings, and it was clear the Cardinals weren’t going to pull off a miraculous comeback of the kind that had inspired the Tarps Off movement to begin with, the section became restless. During a particularly lengthy stretch where the Brewers scored about 85 runs, pretty much everyone without a shirt on stopped paying attention to the game. At one point they weren’t even facing the field, instead opting to sing the National Anthem to the scoreboard, followed by “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with their hands still over their hearts.

And that was about the end of it. Though twice as many people were now sitting in the section, the Tarps Off crew eventually lost all of its momentum, and so did the Cardinals. Neither party really seemed all that interested in the game after that, and me and my fellow dad-bods left in the eighth inning to beat traffic.

I had originally watched the Tarps Off movement unfold in real time on MLB TV, and had found it as thrilling as everyone else. When the Cardinals brass started to motivate the fans to keep it up, I was skeptical that it could maintain its momentum or charm, but, eighth inning malaise aside, the enthusiasm seems to have endured. I hope it can stay that way, because sitting in this area truly makes for a fun and unique experience for fans, so long as the crowd continues to reject the Draco Malfoys of the world.