Sports
Archers Realize Busch Stadium Dream
St. Louis Community College baseball players recently got a chance to realize a childhood dream: playing at Busch Stadium.
For Archers sophomore Larry Schimsa, the anticipation to take the field was becoming too much.
As Schmisa sat in the stands at Busch Stadium and watched the St. Louis Cardinals play the Cincinnati Reds last Sunday, he said he just couldn't wait for the game to be over, so that he and his baseball teammates could take the field for a scrimmage game against Lewis and Clark Community College.
“You get really antsy up there,” Schimsa said. “By the time it is the ninth inning, you can hardly sit still.”
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After the three-plus hour game ended and area youth finished running the bases for “Kids Run the Bases Day," the St. Louis Community College Archers baseball team, adorned in dark grey and blue uniforms, entered the field and warmed up, running laps around the stadium's warning track, stretching and long tossing the ball along the first base line.
Finally, it was time. Archers pitcher Eric Tiefenthalar took the mound to kick off the scrimmage.
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“It's a dream come true,” Tiefenthalar said. “My adrenaline got pumping once I got up there. Then, I just let everything I have been taught take over.”
According Scott Goodrich, assistant baseball coach for STLCC, the overall purpose of letting the student athletes play at Busch Stadium is to give them an opportunity to play in a major league stadium and to play on a field that they are not quite accustomed to.
For Dylan Rowe, the experience gives the St. Louis-raised sophomore a chance to do something he has always dreamed of doing: playing at Busch Stadium.
Sitting in that batters box and waiting for the pitch led Rowe to think about some of the legacies that have stood there before him.
“Albert Pujols and all the great players have been standing on the same field that I am standing on now,” Rowe said. “How cool is that?”
Even though, Goodrich and his staff continuously stress the importance of academics over athletics, he hopes that Archers still aspire to play ball at the Major League level. Consquently, he hopes that playing at Busch stadium serves as a motivator for the athletes to show them that there are guys who are three or four years older than them playing on the field everyday.
“You can be really really close if you have the ability and the dedication to get to that level,” Goodrich said. “So we kind of look at it as a self motivator to say this is what I want to do and hopefully I can be at this level someday.”
To make the dream realized even more sweet, the Archers won the scrimmage 7-2. The team kicks off their regular season Feb. 28 against Southwestern Illinois College.