Have you ever wondered whether an experience you were a part of was a dream? Whether it felt real or it was all an allusion in your brain? Or if you could not believe what you were seeing in front of your own eyes was reality itself? These questions can definitely be a part of sports fans’ brains when they witness something truly magical happen at a game that they attend. I, for one, witnessed the Minneapolis Miracle in the flesh for the Minnesota Vikings against the New Orleans Saints seven years ago. My first ever NFL game, Vikings game and sporting event in the Midwest United States all packed into one. But this note is about a baseball game that I recently attended in a place where the team there is worshipped like gods. Gods with wings that spread to fly to greatness of winning pennants and World Series. The fans of that team expect as much and when it doesn’t happen, they feel dismayed or find some outstanding factor to blame for their team’s defeat. They have the most World Series titles of any National League franchise and have had a plethora of legends play for massive parts of their careers in the town famous for a giant arch in the sky.

I’m talking about the St. Louis Cardinals baseball club and I had the pleasure of watching my favorite team, the Los Angeles Angels, compete against them in not one, but two games that I attended at the modern Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. This occurred at the beginning of April 2025 and I had the pleasure of having both my parents with me on the trip to the Heartland of America along with a few family friends as well. The Angels were on their opening road trip for the 2025 MLB season and they had just won a series against the Chicago White Sox, winning the latter two games after losing on Opening Day. We planned this out correctly, with the hopes of there being no severe weather to threaten the playing of both games we attended. Arriving on the last day of March, the series began that night and I watched the first game from the house of our good family friends who live in a nature-filled neighborhood outside of the city. The Halos won the first game in extra innings 5-4, with a save by first-year pitcher Ryan Johnson occurring after his rocky debut in Chicago. Three straight victories had occurred for the Angels, who hadn’t achieved a winning streak of that length in quite a while during a baseball season. Handing the Cardinals their first loss of the year, the Halos had the upper hand and were seeking to win another series on their road trip across the Midwest corridor. Safe to say that we were far away from Orange County, Calif., on this April Fool’s Day. The game that occurred that evening would be no joke of an experience, but something to remember for the rest of my life as a baseball fan and loyal supporter of the Halos.

The entire day of Apr. 1, 2025 was an incredible one to say the least. I was able to go to many places in the St. Louis metro area, including the Rawlings Experience at the Westport Plaza just southwest of Lambert International Airport, a walk across the Chain of Rocks Route 66 bridge both ways across the Mississippi River on the Missouri and Illinois state line, and a visit to the iconic Gateway Arch. I didn’t go up the tram at the Arch, I just looked up in the sky above me and saw the metal wonder that should register as one of the greatest manmade wonders in the modern world. We arrived at the ballpark an hour before first pitch, where my dad surprised me with our seats and the location of them. They were close behind home plate, in the 12th row of section 148. We were very close to home plate and the tickets were not as expensive as they would have been in Anaheim at the Lexus Diamond Club. I felt lucky and fortunate to be where I was with the beautiful evening view with a cloud cover that was light enough for the sun to shine through and reflect off the beautiful Arch. With buildings as well surrounding the open air environment, I truly felt like I was in a special place. The graphics on the scoreboard said “Welcome to Baseball Heaven”, and I was definitely feelings those heavenly vibes on this spectacular Tuesday night.

We would see the entrance of the Cardinals mascot Fredbird on his red mobile, a similar entrance to the mascot of the Athletics baseball club Stomper when we were in Oakland last year to see the Angels play one last time at the aged-out Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. This was my third time attending a Halos regular season game on the road and the first time attending a game with my favorite team outside of their home state of California. The Angels won the first game I attended on the road away from the Big A on Aug. 13, 2018 as they defeated the San Diego Padres at Petco Park in ten innings 6-3. The game in Oakland the year before was an embarrassing loss by the score of 8-2. But now in the town named after a French patron saint, I was in the stands for a cold Tuesday evening game. And boy, was it cold. Coming from Southern California, we don’t experience as much or as severe cold weather compared to the rest of the nation. The wind chill was lower than the actual temperature and I knew that once I stepped outside our rental car at the Rawlings Experience. Thankfully, I was able to purchase a souvenir sweater with way more layers of cotton and wool than the sweater that I was wearing. The game-time temperature was somewhere in the mid-fifties with a wind chill in the low-forties. The winds were also blowing into the stadium, making it harder for a home run to be hit. The Cardinals had hit two of them the night before off Tyler Anderson, who had to settle for a typical no-decision with an Angels comeback victory. So, the second game of a three-game series between interleague opponents with shades of red for their colors was set to begin.

Before that though, there was a dual performance of “God Bless America” and “The Star-Spangled Banner” by musical groups at local schools in the St. Louis metro area. Elementary-school kids in a choir sung the first and a middle-school orchestra performed the national anthem. Both of them were very good and well-executed. After that, the starting lineups were announced by the public address announcer. For the Angels, Mike Trout would be batting in the third spot of the lineup, with Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo taking the two spots ahead of him. The middle three batters would be Jorge Soler as the designated hitter, Yoan Moncada at third base and Travis d’Arnaud as the catcher. The bottom three batters in the lineup were Nolan Schanuel at first base, Jo Adell in center field and Tim Anderson at shortstop. The starting pitcher for the Halos would be Kyle Hendricks in his team debut for the regular season. Hendricks was a familiar foe in St. Louis as he had pitched the first decade worth of his career for the hated rivals of the Cardinals in the Chicago Cubs. The starting lineup for the home team was announced, with Lars Nootbaar leading off in left field, Alec Burleson manning first base, and Brendan Donavan as the second baseman. The star player of the Cards in Nolan Arenado was batting cleanup as the third baseman, with Nolan Gorman as the designated hitter, Jordan Walker in right field, Pedro Pagés as the catcher, Victor Scott II in center field and Masyn Winn at shortstop. The starting pitcher for St. Louis was a young left-handed pitcher by the name of Matthew Liberatore.

The game started at 6:45 p.m CT, fifteen minutes before the top of the hour and fifteen minutes after the half hour. The Cardinals are only one of a few teams that has an odd first pitch time like that for their home games; the other ones that come to mind are the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs and Atlanta Braves. The Angels were up to bat first and I got to see the first pitch by Liberatore to Taylor Ward, who looked at a quick first strike. After fouling a couple foul balls, Ward struck out swinging. The Halos didn’t do much early on, as Liberatore also got Mike Trout to strike out. This game was my first time seeing Trout play live in-person since late April of last year, when he suffered a season-ending meniscus injury a game after I saw the Angels play a home game against the Minnesota Twins. Kyle Hendricks threw his first official pitches as an Angel and he gave up a leadoff single to Nootbaar, with all the Cardinals fans blurting out in chants of “Nooooot!” Hendricks got through the other three batters with no problem and it was a scoreless game heading into the second inning. After Liberatore had another smooth inning against the Halos, Hendricks came out for his second inning of work. But it would be a little more rocky as Nolan Gorman hit a double to center field to begin the bottom of the 2nd. The very next batter in Jordan Walker hit a 2-2 sinker to center field that brought Gorman in to score for the first run of the game. The Cardinals gained the early lead, but they were looking for more runs. Hendricks thankfully worked his way out of a jam with two runners on base and the score was 1-0 in favor of the home team through two innings of action.

In the top of the 3rd inning, the Angels would finally get some hits against the left-handed Liberatore. After a couple of groundouts, Tim Anderson came up to bat and he ended up making contact with a sinker that wound up being a single for the Halos’ first hit of the game. Then, Ward came up and hit the first pitch he saw to the opposite field(right field) and the ball dropped in fair territory in front of Walker. Anderson ran to third base and Ward stayed at first, with Luis Rengifo coming up to bat from the right side of the plate. On the second pitch of the at-bat, Rengifo hit a curveball straight to left field and it went into the gap, with Anderson scoring and Ward running to third base. Rengifo went to second base with an RBI double and the game was tied. Mike Trout came up to bat, looking to give the Angels the lead and he didn’t hesitate as he hit the first pitch he saw down the left-field line past Nolan Arenado. The ball hit the wall in front of the left-field corner, with Ward and Rengifo coming around to score. Trout had a two-run double and I was very excited to see that. Four straight two-out hits had created three runs for the Halos. The inning ended when Jorge Soler grounded out, but the Angels had a 3-1 lead that Kyle Hendricks could work with.

The bottom of the 3rd would produce a 1-2-3 inning for Hendricks, who was starting to have good control over his pitch count. After an empty top of the fourth inning for the Halos, Hendricks came back out to pitch in the bottom of the fourth. He got Gorman to fly out on one pitch, then he would have a long duel against big Jordan Walker, who fouled off a few pitches and worked the at-bat to a 3-2 count. On the ninth pitch of the at-bat, Walker would swing at a four-seam fastball thrown by Hendricks and the ball traveled high and far to deep center field. The ball went far enough to hit the batter’s eye lawn out in center and it was a solo home run. I didn’t quite have the best view of the pitch as there were a few people standing up a couple of rows in front of where I was sitting with my parents and my good family friend Miguel Perez. But when I heard the sound and saw the ball where it was, I knew that it would not stay in the field of play. The fireworks blasted off over the first scoreboard in right-center field and the Cardinals had come within a run of the Angels. The very next at-bat, Hendricks gave up a single to Pedro Pagés, but he got the next two batters out to end the inning with the lead still favoring the visiting Halos.

The next few innings provided little action from the hitter’s side for both teams, with Hendricks and Liberatore taking over the game. A double play was turned by the Angels to end the bottom of the fifth and Luis Rengifo got thrown out trying to steal second base in the top of the sixth. Following six innings of work, both starting pitchers were done for the night. Liberatore would be relieved by right-hander Kyle Leahy, who got the three Halos batters to ground out in the top of the 7th. After the seventh-inning stretch, Ian Anderson would enter to pitch in his Angels debut, as he had been acquired in a trade from the Atlanta Braves before the regular season started. The right-handed Anderson(formerly a starting pitcher) got the bottom third of the St. Louis lineup out in successive order to end the inning with the Halos still up 3-2.

The top of the 8th saw Leahy return to pitch a second inning, where he got the three hitters due up for the Angels out yet again. The bottom of the 8th was upon us and the Halos would bring their secret weapon in the bullpen into the game. Ben Joyce was entering the game to pitch in his third game of the season and it was my first time seeing him pitch in-person ever. I had seen his marvelous fireball pitching style on televised Angels games before, but never before had I seen the beauty of Joyce’s pitches before at a ballgame that I was attending. That was before this April Fool’s night game in St. Louis, Missouri. Joyce was looking to keep this game in the hands of the Angels and maintain this slim one-run lead so that Kenley Jansen could be set up for a save opportunity in the bottom of the ninth. It was very paramount that the Cardinals be kept scoreless in this inning, so the pressure was on. The first pitch by Joyce to Lars Nootbaar was a 98-mph sinker for a ball. The next two pitches were 100+ mph fastballs that went for strikes. But on the fourth pitch of the at-bat, Nootbaar cracked a 102 mph four-seamer into center field for a single. There was trouble early on as the game-tying run was on-base. The very next at-bat, Joyce settled down and got Alec Burleson to ground out to Rengifo, but Nootbaar was able to advance to second base. So, the game-tying run was in scoring position. The next at-bat was swift as Joyce got Brendan Donovan to ground out to Rengifo for the second out of the inning, but yet again Nootbaar was able to move over to the next base. Now standing at third base with two outs to go, Nootbaar was hoping to score with Nolan Arenado coming up to bat. This was the biggest at-bat of the game up to this point and Ben Joyce had a heck of a matchup on his hands. He has faced off with some pretty good and experienced batters so far in his major league career, with some success against big-name players like J.D Martinez, Tommy Edman and others. This was a big at-bat against Arenado, who was the sole superstar face left in town. In his fifth season as a Cardinal, Arenado is looking to lead a team with a low payroll and an outgoing president of baseball operations back to the postseason for the first time since 2022. The first two pitches of the at-bat were four-seam fireballs that were called balls by the home plate umpire Doug Eddings. Joyce would slow down and threw two straight sinkers that were called strikes. On a 2-2 pitch, Joyce threw a 101 mph fastball that Arenado hit to the right side of the infield away from first base. Nolan Schanuel had to go field the ball while Joyce raced to cover the base. Schanuel fielded the ball and threw the ball wide of Joyce’s glove! Arenado was safe and Nootbaar had scored from third base. The game was tied and Arenado would advance to second base due to the ball going out of play. A throwing error by one Nolan trying to throw out another Nolan. And speaking of which, another Nolan was coming up to bat to try and bring his teammate named Nolan in to score to give the Cards the lead. Thankfully, Ben Joyce put an end to this Nolan madness as he got Nolan Gorman to ground out to end the inning. But St. Louis had tied the game at 3 and there was a chance that this game would be heading to extra innings if nobody scored in the ninth inning. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Another close game for the Angels to start out the season. Four of their first five with a close margin on the scoreboard entering the ninth.

Both managers wouldn’t mess around as each of the closers made an appearance in the ninth inning. Ryan Helsley came in to his “Hells Bells” soundtrack that was most famously used by Hall of Fame reliever Trevor Hoffman in his playing days. Helsley channeled that energy from the famous AC/DC song to get Rengifo, Trout and Soler out in spectacular fashion. Now it was up to Kenley Jansen to force extra innings. In the bottom of the ninth, Jansen struck out Jordan Walker, got Pedro Pagés to fly out to Trout in right field, and forced Victor Scott II to fly out to Adell in center to end the inning smoothly. This game was going to extra innings. Back-to-back nights with games heading into the tenth inning to start out this series in the very early parts of the season. Pretty crazy if you ask me.

Now this game was the second time that I have attended a game that went to extra innings in this decade. The reason why I mention that is because of how much I despise extra inning games in Major League Baseball. I do not approve nor condone the rule of an automatic runner being placed on second base for each team in extra innings. I just don’t like it. The rule was implemented in the 2020 season and they have kept the rule for every season since. The league office had tested this new style of play beyond the ninth inning in the minor leagues for a few years before deciding to bring it to the big leagues for the shortened 60-game season under the guise of ending games quicker due to fear of spreading the coronavirus on the field. Well, at least that was the reasoning they used for the first couple seasons of its use. But everyone with a sense of a baseball roster’s functions knows the true intent of the rule. To have games end more easily with a higher chance of scoring so that bullpens are not overtaxed across the stretch of a long season. Playing on almost every day of the week for so many consecutive weeks can be draining for ballplayers. But the unwillingness of the MLB Players Association to protest this rule tells everyone that the players, managers, coaching staffs, union representatives and league office are all complicit in this. And the fans either benefit due to long game-time lengths(this was placed in before the pitch clock made its big league debut in 2023) or suffer due to a loss of fairness and integrity in ending a game the “right” way. So, back to the matter at hand. The first extra-inning game that I attended with this so-called “ghost runner” rule(I prefer to call it the toast runner) was on Aug. 18, 2023 when the Angels hosted the Tampa Bay Rays. After failing to walk off the Rays in the bottom of the ninth, the Angels unfortunately allowed the runner on second at the start of the tenth inning to score for Tampa Bay and were unable to bring their toast runner home in the bottom of the inning. So, they lost 6-5. The Angels have struggled for the most part, especially at the Big A, with this rule ever since it was implemented and I was dreading this result. At least a 5-4 win in ten innings the night before in extras gave me some hope that maybe they could break through and carry over their good luck from the night before with the toast runner. But if I really wanted to protest this rule, I would have been walking out of the stands and out of the ballpark like a lot of the fans in the sparsely-attended crowd in this game did. There were a lot of people who left after the 9th inning, probably because they had to rest up for their day jobs the next day. The game was going by pretty fast for a nine-inning game, but that didn’t stop a lot of the crowd from walking out. What they missed really was worth the price of admission.

To start out the top of the 10th, the Angels used a pinch-runner for their “ghost runner” at second base in Kyren Paris, who was pinch-running for Jorge Soler. Paris is a young infield prospect who made the Opening Day roster as a backup option at center field and he had made a couple starts on this road trip so far. Paris was looking to be the go-ahead run for the Halos in this tight game with the Cardinals. A new pitcher would enter the game in the tenth inning for St. Louis and it would be right-hander Ryan Fernandez. The first batter up was Yoan Moncada, who worked a walk on six pitches. Then, Travis d’Arnaud would hit a lazy pop fly that was caught by Alec Burleson at first base. Nolan Schanuel was up next and he was seeking to redeem himself for that horrid throwing error in the bottom of the 8th that allowed the Cardinals to score the game-tying run. On a 2-2 pitch after a foul ball, Schanuel got his chance and seized it. He hit a slider from Fernandez out to right center field, where Victor Scott II was sprinting to make the catch. But the ball dropped away from his glove and went all the way to the wall and both Paris and Moncada would come around to score. Schanuel kept hustling around to third base to gain the first triple of his career. A clutch hit by the Halos’ first baseman had broke the tie in this game. The following at-bat, Jo Adell showed his clutch side and punched a single through the left side of the infield that brought Schanuel home to give the Angels a 3-run lead. Tim Anderson grounded into a double play to end the inning, but the Halos had a seemingly secure 6-3 lead heading into the bottom of the 10th. All the bullpen needed to do was get three outs and not allow the game-tying run to reach base. It also helped with the toast runner for St. Louis not being an imminent threat to the Angels.

In the bottom half of the tenth inning, a new reliever entered the game for the Halos and it was left-hander Garrett McDaniels. It was an odd decision by Ron Washington not to let Kenley Jansen pitch another inning after only throwing 11 pitches in the bottom of the ninth, but with a three-run lead he trusted that a young reliever in McDaniels could get the job done. The automatic runner at second base was Victor Scott II, who had just failed to make a game-saving catch on Schanuel’s two-run triple. Masyn Winn led off and he had yet to record a hit in any regular season at-bat that he had so far, but he worked a four-pitch walk against McDaniels to get on-base. Now the game-tying run was coming up and a dangerous hitter in Lars Nootbaar was due to bat. McDaniels would fortunately get Nootbaar to strike out looking for the first out of the inning. A double play could have ended this game, but a new batter was coming up for the Cardinals. Due to McDaniels being a left-handed reliever, St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol pulled out Alec Burleson and had a big right-handed batter named Luken Baker enter the game as a pinch-hitter. Baker started the previous game as the designated hitter, with him getting a couple of hits off Tyler Anderson, so he was more than capable of getting a clutch base hit. As the game-tying run at the plate, Baker was dangerous, so McDaniels had to be very careful with him. The at-bat would get to a 1-2 count, but McDaniels threw a couple of pitches wide of the strike zone, including a ball that went past d’Arnaud’s mitt and went to the backstop, allowing both runners to advance ninety feet. Now with runners at second and third, Baker had a chance to drive in two runs and he did just that on the next pitch, as he hit a sinker from McDaniels to bring both Scott and Winn home. It was a two-run double and the Cardinals were only down by one run now. The game-tying run was in scoring position and the game-winning run was coming up to the batter’s box. Baker would be taken out of the game for a pinch-runner, which was outfielder Michael Siani, so the only option left to play first base if the game got to the 11th inning was Willson Contreras. Brendan Donovan came up to bat and McDaniels walked him on four pitches. Now the game-winning run was on base and the Angels had action in their bullpen. Ryan Johnson was warming up swiftly in the left-field bullpen and Washington came out of the dugout to take McDaniels out of the game. Johnson was coming in to try and secure a save in a high-stakes situation. One hit could tie the game and possibly win it for St. Louis. But a ground ball in the infield could win the game for the Halos. Coming up next to bat was Nolan Arenado, who was looking for a clutch base hit after having a lucky throwing error tie the game in the 8th in his previous at-bat. Johnson threw a few cutters to the veteran batter and on the third one, Arenado delivered a clutch single to right field that brought in Siani to score the game-tying run. Donovan sprinted to third base to get closer as the game-winning run. I was a nervous wreck along with my dad. The Angels had choked their valuable three-run lead and the relievers had fallen to pieces. Allowing walks will only lead to bad things for most pitchers and the lead-off walk issued by McDaniels to a guy who had yet to get a base hit in the season was a fatal mistake. There was still a chance for the Halos to get out of this jam, but Johnson could not afford to allow a ball to be hit deep enough for a game-winning sac fly or a ball in the infield to be hit away from the left side, making it harder for Donovan to be thrown out at the plate. Knowing the latter possibility was a risk and there was an open base, Washington opted to intentionally walk the next batter in Nolan Gorman.

So the bases were loaded and there was one out in the bottom of the tenth. A double play was a possible outcome still for the Halos, but any ball hit out of the infield would more than likely win the game for St. Louis. I did not want to see the Angels get walked-off on after winning the previous game in extras. I did not want my first game at Busch Stadium to end with a walk-off loss by my team. The Cardinals fans left remaining in the crowd wanted to see a walk-off, but me and my dad did not. My mom and Miguel were just hanging on the moment, not caring about whoever won, but they were definitely engaged and wanted to see something dramatic happen. The next better for the home team was Jordan Walker, who had hit that big solo home run in the bottom of the fourth inning. Johnson had to more than likely strike out Walker or get him to pop out in the infield or shallow outfield in order to prevent the game-winning run from scoring. Johnson got Walker down 0-2 early in the at-bat and after a sweeper missed low of the zone, Johnson threw another cutter that Walker hit up in the air to right field, but it was shallow enough for Mike Trout to come in and make a catch. Donovan thought about making a stride towards home plate, but Trout threw the ball like a missile into the infield and d’Arnaud jumped up to catch the ball in order to avoid it going wide of him. That was a very big out there. Mike Trout made a big play in right field and I had seen that for the first time in ages. I had been used to seeing big defensive plays made by Trout in center field over the years, but in right field he was more than capable of being defensively clutch. Now with two outs, it was easier to escape the jam. A force out at any base and home plate could end the inning. Another pinch-hitter came up to bat for the Cards and it was backup catcher Iván Herrera, hitting for fellow catcher Pedro Pagés. Johnson would get Herrera to hit the ball to third base, where Moncada threw the ball swiftly to second base, where Rengifo made the catch before Gorman could slide safely in. The inning was over. The Halos had escaped a bases-loaded jam and this thriller of a game was going into the 11th inning. Despite giving up three runs to offset the trio of runs that they scored in the top of the inning, the Halos had not fully choked away this game. They now had a second chance to make things right and win this game once and for all.

Just like their failure to win the game in the ninth inning, a hefty group of Cardinals fans got up out of their seats and left the ballpark, having failed to see a walk-off in two separate innings. This reminded me of when Miami Heat fans walked out of their arena in the 2013 NBA Finals in Game 6 of that series after thinking that their team had no chance of winning the game and that their dreams of winning a second-straight title were over. But the Heat came back on the San Antonio Spurs and won the game, forcing a Game 7 that they also won to win the series. A completely different situation here in April of 2025, with the Cardinals playing a trivial regular season game against the Angels and a low attendance for this series due to it being during the workweek, but oddly enough the modern Busch Stadium had never seen this low of attendance to their games. The fans were definitely making a statement to their team’s organizational leaders after a soft offseason with little movement to improve their team’s roster. Anyhow, I was still in the seats with my dad, mom and Miguel because this was a rare opportunity to see a game go into the eleventh inning in the “toast runner” era. Something that was more difficult to occur with this dumb rule, but it occurs from time to time. The toast runner in this top of the eleventh was Tim Anderson and the top third of the Halos lineup was due to bat. A couple of defensive changes were made as Willson Contreras was now playing at first base and Iván Herrera was the new catcher. A new reliever had also entered the game and it was right-hander Chris Roycroft, who was looking to prevent the Angels from scoring this time around. The first at-bat was a groundout by Taylor Ward to first base, allowing Anderson to advance to third base. A sac fly or ground ball could potentially score Anderson, but for whatever odd reason Luis Rengifo decided to square up a bunt for a potential “safety squeeze” play that could potentially score Anderson. That would backfire as Rengifo moved his bat into a bunting position and the ball bounced off his bat backwards, allowing Herrera to catch the ball for the second out of the inning. Now the Halos were in danger of not scoring in the top of the 11th, but Mike Trout was coming up to try and be a hero. Knowing that he had hit a two-run double many innings earlier, Trout was intentionally walked by Oliver Marmol. Now with runners on and two outs, Kyren Paris was coming up for his first at-bat of the game. Paris had scored as the automatic runner in the tenth and now in the DH spot, he looked to deliver a clutch hit that would have the Halos regain the lead. Paris swung at a couple of cutters and was down to his last strike, but on a 1-2 count he would make contact and the ball went swiftly to right field! Anderson scored and Trout ran to third base, as Kyren Paris had delivered the go-ahead RBI single. This youngster from Oakley, Calif., was so clutch and he had been showing it in Cactus League play. Now he was showing off on the big stage, with go-ahead hits in two separate games on this road trip. Yoan Moncada came up next, looking to pad the Angels’ lead with two outs. After Paris stole second base, Moncada punched a ball down the left-field line that scored both Trout and Paris. The Halos had reclaimed their three-run edge over St. Louis and were up 9-6. Roycroft had been crushed with two outs, as he would get d’Arnaud to foul out to right field to end the inning.

During that last at-bat, a couple of fans in the front row started chanting out “Let’s Go Blues!”, as the hockey club of the Gateway City was playing a home game up the street at the Enterprise Center. The St. Louis Blues had ironically won an OT game over the Detroit Red Wings, in which that game had started roughly a half-hour after this game at Busch Stadium. In the middle of the 11th, as the Angels were taking the field defensively and the Cardinals were preparing to make their last stand(for a second time), the scoreboard operators showed footage of the game-winning goal by the Blues and the fans in the stands were ecstatic seeing that. They were hoping that a win by their hockey club would motivate their baseball team to put up one last effort to try and win the game, or force it to the 12th inning.

Ryan Johnson came back out to pitch for the Halos in looking to achieve another save, and the toast runner in the bottom of the 11th was Iván Herrera, who would do something historic in the game on Wednesday. Victor Scott II, Masyn Winn and Lars Nootbaar were due up for the Cardinals. The first at-bat went to a full count and Scott hit a cutter to right field that scored Herrera, making this a two-run deficit. Me and my dad were anxious again, but there was another reliever getting ready in the pen for the Angels. Johnson would get Winn to line out to center field and after that, Washington came out to bring one Ryan out of the game and another Ryan into the game. The Ryan pitcher entering the game for the Halos was Ryan Zeferjahn, who was tabbed to finally put an end to the St. Louis resistance. Zeferjahn would do just that as he got Nootbaar to fly out to left field and got Willson Contreras to strike out on a sweeper to end the game. The Angels had finally secured a win over the Cardinals, defeating the home team 9-7 in 11 innings and securing a series win on a thrilling Tuesday night game. I was happy to see the Angels win an extra-inning game in person. It had been a long time since I had seen such a thing, but I was very satisfied. The game was definitely a roller coaster of different emotions, but the Halos held their ground and won their fourth straight game after losing the season opener. Ryan Johnson was the winning pitcher, Chris Roycroft the losing pitcher, and Ryan Zeferjahn had secured the save. The Halos had 10 hits to go with their nine runs and a fielding error tabbed to Nolan Schanuel. The Cardinals had 11 hits paired with their 7 runs and no errors were charged to them.

As I left the ballpark on that chilly Tuesday evening, I knew that this wasn’t the last I’d see of Busch Stadium on this trip. We were coming back to see tomorrow afternoon’s game. With a chance of thunderstorms in the area due to a severe weather warning that would go on to impact areas south and east of Missouri, I was worried that the Wednesday afternoon game on Apr. 2, 2025 would not be fully played and I would have to witness my first rain delay game ever(I had never gone through such a thing at Angel Stadium). Thankfully, that was not the case and the thunderstorms would stay to the west of St. Louis, although the clouds were floating quickly in the air. We had good seats in the Redbird Infield Club on the first base side and I almost caught a foul ball for the first time ever. With only a few fans around us, I was so close, but the ball would be picked up by a kid in a group sitting on the other side of our row. The foul ball was ironically hit by Mike Trout and he would hit his first home run of the season on the very next pitch. The only other runs scored by the Angels that day came on a grand slam by Logan O’Hoppe, as the Cardinals had a powerful offensive performance that could not be overcome. I saw something for the first time occur at a baseball game I had attended. A three home-run game. And it was the most unlikely of players who did it for the Cardinals. The starting catcher that day in Iván Herrera hit three home runs off the Angels pitchers that day. Unreal. His first home run had the booming fireworks blow off a piece of metal from the platform where they went off, so for his other home runs and the end of the game Busch Stadium had its backup “safe-and-sane” fireworks go off. So, the Halos won one game that I attended at the ballpark near the Gateway Arch and lost the other. Either way, I was very happy with this experience and will hold it in high regard for the rest of my life. It definitely ranks high on my list of sporting events attended.

By the way, the weather held off until after the game had been completed. The thunderstorms began literally an hour later and the booming thunder and flashes of lightning filled the air for a good hour and a half or so. The heartland definitely has way different weather patterns than SoCal. Beware of that if you ever go to a sporting event in the Midwest.