ST. LOUIS — Yohel Pozo has a sore throat.
It started Thursday in West Sacramento, hooting and hollering his way through a three-hit performance at Sutter Health Park, capped off by a rally-starting single in the ninth inning. It calmed a little as he hammered through pitches displayed as though they were coming from a variety of Royals relievers in the bowels of Busch Stadium, thanks to the team’s Trajekt machine, but it bloomed fully by the time he punched a game-winning single to right field in the 11th inning on Friday night. By the time he started to celebrate a little too early — realizing just in time that he did in fact need to go touch first base — the roar came up and out of him, and the acoustics in his voice were shot.
No matter. The ballpark was loud enough.
The paid attendance at Busch Stadium on Friday night was a paltry 26,949, the third least-attended game ever played between these two teams at this ballpark. All three have come within the last two seasons, and the two from 2025 which make the list were a Tuesday evening and the first game of a Thursday doubleheader. Weekend crowds are bound to be better — the Cardinals are expecting a bump into the mid-30s for the two remaining games — but at first pitch Friday, even in an era in which attendance starting with a two has become the new norm, there were more than a few askance glances and cocked eyebrows at the seas of empty seats.
No one seemed to notice 11 innings later. That will happen when perhaps roughly two percent of announced total is on their feet in right field with shirts peeled off and swinging above their heads, each person doing their best to blow out their voice, Pozo-style. What a started as a novelty and perhaps a copycat quirk soon became the defining characteristic of Friday’s series-opening Cardinals victory, with player after player taking to postgame microphones and social media feeds to come just inches short of begging the lively crowd to return.
“Whoever started that in right field, I’ll do whatever I need to do to make sure they come every game,” manager Oli Marmol said before fielding questions at his postgame media availability. “Because that was awesome. Not only them, but everybody that showed up today. That was a fun environment.”
The commute for the hooligans may be difficult. Members of the club baseball team at Stephen F. Austin University were quick to claim credit for kicking things off, and Nagodoches, TX doesn’t have a MetroLink stop. The Lumberjacks were at Friday’s game as a pit stop in the midst of their competition in the National Club Baseball Association Division II World Series, being played this weekend in Alton, IL. They were quickly supplemented by more than a few locals, given the distinctly Mizzou-scented flavor that came from the chorus of “fuck KU” sprinkled over Mr. Brightside as it played before the 11th inning. This weekend is commencement weekend at the University of Missouri, as it is so many other places, and if there’s one group of people who doesn’t need much of a push to drink two too many beers and peel their tarps off at a ballgame, it’s a bunch of guys being dudes who are clutching fresh college diplomas in their hands.
Of course, beers aside, if there are two groups eager to do so, the second was seemingly everyone wearing a Cardinals jersey on Friday night, right down to Fredbird. If you were curious whether his uniform top is attached to his red plumage in any significant way, that curiosity was settled as ol’ Fred sprinted naked as a jaybird to exhort the crowd at the end of the game. Perhaps the only surprise was that no players came out to join him.
“I was about to take my jersey off and join them, but I controlled myself,” Pozo admitted.
“I saw that, and I was like, wow, there’s a lot of shirtless dudes out there,” said Cardinals starter Dustin May. “That was definitely one for the books that I was not planning to see today. But hey, set the vibes. They were ready for us.”
It is perhaps the vibes that feel more different than anything else about this particular team, given the freedom to be born into its own identity that perhaps does not sync perfectly with the sometimes stodgy air around the franchise. For years now, Marmol has turned wistful when confronted with aggressive stadium crowds around the country, coming up just short of envy in the face of hostility from groups like Citi Field’s 7 Line Army, Wrigley’s bleacher bums, and even St. Louis City SC’s Louligans. Even while being careful to point out that he understands winning drives engagement, the manager has not been shy about sharing his vision for an atypically raucous crowd that could form a feedback loop with a group of young players who may not know any better.
Against all odds and textiles, Busch Stadium arrived at that point for a few innings on Friday night. The energy in the stands was reflected back by energy on the field, and each looked like the other in some strange, hairy ways. That feeling, multiplied by a factor of meaningful baseball and carried through October, is what these Cardinals are looking to capture, vocal cords be damned.