The STLCC Archer baseball team plays at Busch Stadium in front of friends and family
Kurt Oberreither
-News Editor-
When the STLCC Archers took the field shortly after the Cardinals played the Cincinnati Reds and fans of baseball ages 15 and under ran the bases, Busch Stadium was not at full capacity, but what was left were family and friends of the Archers and the Lewis and Clark Trailblazers.
“I’m doing better [than last year] because I know I have to be relaxed. It’s no good to get worried,” Theresa Miller, mother of Archers’ pitcher Ian Miller, said.
This year was the second year the Millers watched their son play at Busch Stadium.
Miller was scheduled to pitch in the ninth inning, but due to a two-hour and thirty-minute time limit, the left-handed pitcher was forced to face one batter earlier than he expected.
“I didn’t get what I expected,” pitcher Ian Miller said when asked about the experience. “It’s all good though—I enjoyed being able to play where the pros play.”
Baseball runs through the Miller family tree. His father played baseball, but never reached the big leagues.
“We’ve been preparing him since he was 3,” Theresa Miller said. “His dad was a righty, and he turned out to be a lefty.”
The butterflies were felt throughout all the family and friends of Archer players as each of their moments to shine came under the lights at Busch.
In the bottom of the seventh inning, freshman Archer baseball player Drew Moran stepped into the same batter’s box where Cardinal’s third baseman and former Meramec Magic baseball player David Freese had stood just a few hours before, in the bottom of the ninth inning, with the game on the line.
His family and friends were living vicariously through him in that moment, as they sat behind the netting, just to the right of home plate—a few feet away from where Moran stood.
“It’s awesome,” Moran’s girlfriend, Erin Riley, said. “I’m really jealous of him.”
Riley was a pitcher for the Meramec Magic softball team last year.
Moran’s mother, Mary-Anne Moran said she always knew her son could be playing on a big league field as she cheered him on.
She said the Archers have been a good fit for her son so far.
Moran has been playing baseball since the age of 4.
Throughout the stands that had held tens of thousands of Cardinals fans that afternoon, Archer and Trailblazer fans filled the few hundred seats that surround the dugouts and behind home plate.
Archer head coach, Tony Dattoli made sure that all of the friends and family of his team were able to share and witness in the spectacle of playing a baseball game on a major league field.
“Everybody played,” Dattoli said after the game. “We had a couple guys injured that were unable to play, but everybody that was active and eligible and healthy…we were able to get everybody in.”
