As you are aware, if you watched either St. Louis Cardinals game since Friday or have followed any Cardinals-related social media during that time, on Friday night, a group of fans—college-aged men, for whatever that’s worth to you—took their shirts off at Busch Stadium and starting waving them like rally towels above their heads and started yelling like crazy. And as I type this, it feels stupid to be writing about this.

This was, for better or worse, not exceptional behavior. The young men, members of a Stephen F. Austin University club baseball team, were in the Greater St. Louis area for a tournament, and presumably didn’t attend the game on Friday as fans of the Cardinals (or of the Kansas City Royals) but just as a bunch of dudes with a free night who wanted to watch baseball and hang out with their boys. The next day, Oli Marmol had specifically bought out their section so that they could attend the Saturday afternoon game, and thanks to a combination of a rain delay at Busch Stadium and the team’s own walk-off win across the river in Alton, they showed up and were once again wild and crazy.

Like I said, it feels dumb to describe this. It’s not a story. It’s a bunch of relatively anonymous guys hanging out. And yet, because of what has happened to Busch Stadium, and because of what has happened to western society, over the last decade or so, it feels significant. And how it feels ultimately does have a huge impact on how significant it actually is.

An extremely loaded phrase in modern pop-sociology is “the male loneliness epidemic”. It is a loaded phrase because it is often used as an excuse for antisocial behaviors, whether it is genuinely criminal or just kind of being a rude jerk to (mostly) women. It is also problematic in the sense that it implies that loneliness is a specifically male problem, when in reality, humanity has become increasingly isolated. There are numerous reasons for this: a mass culture that teaches people not to trust others (people are often afraid to interact with strangers in public due to fear of crime despite crime having been on a steady national decline literally my entire life), a self-fulfilling destiny in which a lack of affordable third-places drives people to become hermits, the fact that there’s a generation of young people who, in their formative years, were just excluded from gathering socially for a year-plus due to a worldwide pandemic. In short, there is a male loneliness epidemic in the sense that there a loneliness epidemic which impacts all people.

The specific brand of young shenanigans on display by the Stephen F. Austin dudes is not one to which I personally participate, but also, I am a 37 year old man with a mortgage and back pain. But the less discussed element of their experience is one that very much excites me: chanting and screaming at a baseball game. This has been a problem for the Cardinals in particular for several years—there has long been a culture of politeness associated with the Busch Stadium crowd. And if you are in a crowd that is politely clapping and nothing more, there is an implied pressure to stay at that level. And if you’re somebody who doesn’t want to be loud at a baseball game, I think that’s fine—but having the option to be a little rambunctious is a great way to make attending a game feel fun. 

I went to two Major League stadiums last year—Busch Stadium, to see a decent if unexceptional Cardinals team, and Rate Field, to see an abominable Chicago White Sox team. Somehow, Rate Field had the more fun environment. This is not necessarily a reflection of Chicago fans caring more, and I have been reminded of that when I’ve attended St. Louis BattleHawks or St. Louis City SC games. Fans go wild in those environments, rooting for mediocre-at-best teams that have existed for less than half a dozen years in secondary professional leagues. The environments of the Philadelphia Phillies or the Toronto Blue Jays in recent postseasons have displayed that baseball crowds can have plenty of juice. And while it would be unfair to expect a May regular season series to reach those levels, there’s a ton of growth potential.

To say that the Cardinals have the best vibes they’ve had since at least 2022 is a massive understatement. Part of it is the team being better, but it’s not like they’ve been great—if the season ended today, the Cardinals wouldn’t even be assured of a home playoff game. And the identity of the team has changed. Paul Goldschmidt was a nice man, but he was almost defiantly quiet. Nolan Arenado’s personality varied wildly depending on how he was playing. The starting rotation was defined by Miles Mikolas and his, to use the scientific term, redassery. The story of 2026 so far has been young guns like Jordan Walker and J.J. Wetherholt exploding onto the scene. They are a team with explosive talents who are too young to realize they aren’t supposed to be doing this. And they’re a team that seems to have loved the newfound crowd noise.

There are some sports in which home field advantage is a very real thing. It absolutely exists in college football, for instance. Truthfully, I don’t know what tangible effect a loud crowd at Busch Stadium would have on the Cardinals’ on-field success. But it’s fun to believe that it makes a difference, and the belief could be beneficial to everybody. It can give Cardinals players extra motivation to work hard in their craft. It can give the Cardinals organization a shot in the arm at a time of declining attendance by making going to the game feel truly appealing. And perhaps most significantly, it can give a generation a reason to get out of the house and have a fun, dumb time with their friends.