Kyle Goon: Tarps Off isn’t disrupting baseball fandom. It’s a new spin on an old rite of passage.

It was just one or two minutes into my latest self-designated reporting assignment that I realized I had made a huge mistake.

Slightly breathless after climbing into the Camden Yards upper concourse, I came out the tunnel in front of Section 306, where a throng of young men and boys were twirling their shirts high above their heads, their bare chests flaunted proudly under the spotlight.

There were hundreds of them, mostly high school or college-aged, and none looking any older than 30. They hooted at the field far below them, chanting for right fielder Colton Cowser to acknowledge them (he did not), or that the Blue Jays sucked (they went on to win). Most often, they chanted at each group of newcomers walking up the steps, “TAKE IT OFF! TAKE IT OFF!”

If this viral sensation is at all new to you, this is “Tarps Off,” a trend that originated at Busch Stadium in St. Louis from some Stephen F. Austin students who made a splash by taking their shirts off late in the game and rousing the crowd into a frenzy. Imitators have cropped up across the country, including during the last 10-game stand at Camden Yards.

I learned this was a thing when the Orioles were on the road at Tampa, and play-by-play man Kevin Brown could not help but laugh as the rowdy, bare-chested congregants wound up hijacking the whole environment at Tropicana Field.

So when I spotted where the tarps were coming off, as it were, on Friday, I trekked over. I figured there was central leadership to the movement, which seems to begin around the 7th inning of every game in the cheapest seats. I figured maybe there was some kind of procedure, like a roll call at Yankee Stadium (which has been featured in some of the videos online).

I wanted to see what being a baseball fan is like for the younger, throw-caution-to-the-wind, terminally online generation, and why it has felt so invigorating on the sleepy weeknight baseball games across the country.

The real experience, however, was like being transported to spring break along the Florida panhandle, with the same kind of smell you’d expect in a partied-out motel room. The biggest difference at Camden Yards was that all the men and boys were heckling at other men to take their tops off.

The chanting was organic, but also terribly disorganized. This was a game in which the Orioles lost a late lead, and as that happened, the group went from chanting for the O’s to chanting all kinds of things: “U-S-A!” or “Do a 6-7!” or “Don-ald Trump!” It felt a little like when the crowd tries to do the wave, with one or two instigators trying desperately to get the people around them to join in.

There was no central rule except the main one — you had to take your shirt off (I sat one section over, remaining professionally wardrobed the entire time).

At one point, two women dressed as hot dogs came out of the tunnel at the bottom of the section to brief fanfare. They proceeded to dance and shout near the front rail, somewhat away from the section while still in the path of its roar. When I asked if they had been drawn — like myself — up to see what the energy was like in Section 306, they said not really.

“We’re mostly trying to get on the jumbotron,” one said. “We thought we’d have a better chance up here.”

I told them I was thinking about writing a column about Tarps Off at Camden Yards, a self-appointed task that was growing into an unseemly chore with each passing minute.

“Oh bless you,” the other woman said. “Good luck with that.”

Boys will be boys

It’s hard to talk about this trend at Camden Yards without addressing the backdrop of a fanbase that is seeing an overall dip in interest. As the Orioles rest uneasily in the middle of the American League Wildcard chase to start June, attendance at Camden Yards is on the decline.

According to Baseball Reference, there are, on average, 1,430 fewer fans at games this year than last. There are plenty of factors that have contributed, including the franchise cranking up the cost of season ticket packages and general disenchantment after winning 101 games in 2023 to now hovering in the back end of the AL East.

In 2024, more than 2 million fans came to the ballpark for the first time in seven years. This season, total attendance is on pace to decline for the second straight year and reach its lowest since 2022, when most assumed the rebuild had finally ended.

While I understand the economic and baseball forces that have shaped this atrophy, I worry about it.

I grew up in the years when Camden Yards was still sparkling and new, drawing in a steady 3.5 million or so throughout the ’90s. I worry that kids won’t have the same formative experiences with baseball, and with the Orioles, that I had, which for generations has been so integral to the character of Baltimore and Marylanders.

While I was intrigued by the idea of a baseball-related youth movement that sparks excitement around Camden Yards, it feels evident to me that the Baltimore version of Tarps Off is, at best, a pale imitation of whatever is happening in St. Louis. The Cardinals version was so successful that it got manager Oliver Marmol to invite the crew into the team clubhouse.

The Camden Yards version quickly faded from full, half-naked glory after Vladimir Guerrero hit a go-ahead RBI double in the eighth inning.

I don’t mean to punch down at the Tarps Off crew. In fact, when I thought I was going to look at the future of youthful enthusiasm in baseball, I saw something much more similar to my own past than I realized or expected.

It took me back to my teens and 20s, when I thought the overriding purpose of being a fan was being heard at screeching volumes and being antagonistic to the visitors — be it the opposing team or their fans sitting just seats away.

I behaved much more egregiously and obnoxiously back then than the Tarps Off folks do now. In college, I thought it was acceptable conduct to berate visiting fans at a Terps football or basketball game for the crime of wearing Tar Heel blue.

There is something inherent in being in that 18 to 24 sports-loving demographic, filled with much more bravado than common sense. Many of them are motivated by an overwhelming, almost crippling desire to be seen and heard in the stands. If Tarps Off had existed when I was 20, I undoubtedly would have scurried up to Section 306, screaming my lungs out just to get a reaction from onlookers — the kind of visceral grimace they might give a grotesque circus performer.

To the generation that is trying to push Tarps Off into MLB ballparks across the country, this is seen as as a kind of innovation, or a “disruption,” to borrow odious tech parlance. The reality is that Tarps Off is just the latest version of a coming-of-age ritual, lacking precision or higher goals, but plentiful in boundless enthusiasm for being a part of a sports spectacle.

We used to sing “Rock And Roll Part 2″ in College Park, shouting “Hey! You suck!” Now at Camden Yards, they’re taking off their shirts.

Different generations. Different mannerisms. But let’s face it: It’s pretty much the same thing.

How to get Fired Up

This would not be a proper journalistic exercise if I did not attempt at least to consult an expert. For this story, I turned to Merrill Heim — known better to some as “The Fired Up Guy.”

He is, like almost all superfans, best imagined as a cartoon character: a stocky frame, bushy red beard, sunglasses and a bucket cap. He can sometimes be seen wearing Orioles equipment with flame decals, a warning of sorts that he’s about to yell in your direction: “Are you fired up? I’m fired up!”

Over the last decade or so, Heim has become a mainstay in Section 16. General manager Mike Elias greets him by name. When Heim takes two or three games off, players ask him crossly, “Hey, where were you?” when he returns.

It’s no exaggeration to say Heim truly helps stir the drink in the Camden Yards stands, especially with prime positioning right behind the home dugout.

“We can’t just be sitting around at the game like we’re in a library,” Heim said. “Every player I ever talk to loves it when we let those guys know we got their back. It gives them that energy. It pumps them up.”

In my brain, I picture an evolutionary chart from the 20-something shirtless Tarps Off fanboy transitioning to a superfan like Heim. Between these two related (but obviously different) kinds of fans, what exactly is the missing link?

By nature of his colorful appearance and his booming voice, Heim, of course, does naturally beg for attention. But the distinction Heim tries to make is that what some of the teens do is for themselves — it takes a little more structure and experience to do cheers that actually help rally the team.

It is something he has worked on for years, since he was a kid at Memorial Stadium cheering for Al Bumbry and Ken Singleton. He first started blasting the “Fired Up” schtick in the mid-2010s, when the Orioles had a run of competitive teams.

He honed the act in the lean years of the rebuild, attempting to fire up just a few thousand fans at a time for a team that would go on to lose 100 games.

“Early on, I had a lot of people act like, ‘Good God, I have to sit behind this guy all game,’ then sometimes later they would come to me and say, ‘You’re f—ing awesome,’” he said. “I learned how to curve it and make it a little more enjoyable for everybody.”

When the Tarps Off crew is blasting at full volume, they get noticed, and players get revved up. When they drift off, the whole exercise feels silly on its face. It’s just a bunch of guys anxiously twisting their shirts in their hands while gathered in one place.

But neither Heim nor I want to be fan police here. In general, both of us believe more vocal support at a baseball game is better than less. And both of us have lived experience of being fans operating from a “look at me” worldview and know what it’s like.

Heim admitted he still can tilt into the loudmouth side when the Orioles are doing spectacularly poorly: “It doesn’t help when they’re getting skunked by the Dodgers and you’re nine beers in.”

Fighting for our attention

When I visited FC Barcelona’s Camp Nou a few years ago, I was fascinated by how fans interacted with the game. A half at a time, everyone stayed in their seats. The concession stands were not open while the game was being played. They had songs and cheers, an entire catalogue of franchise lore that carried a certain foreign mystique since I was just a tourist, not an actual fan.

There’s something about that experience that I wish was more common in the American viewing experience. The game itself comes first, but the fans are a complementary, integral part of the package.

But as we design parks and arenas with bars, social areas, club seating and just more areas to do something else while you’re distractedly watching the game from behind your phone, I think asking for the strict European fan investment is an increasingly distant pipe dream.

The energetic burst of a fad like Tarps Off does give me a spark of hope, even though to both me and Heim, it feels like a fad. If there are more young men twirling their shirts when the Orioles return home against the Mariners on June 8, I’ll be surprised and intrigued.

But the reality is that the movement in Baltimore is only grazing on the natural exuberance and desire to be seen that many men this age already possess.

It will take something deeper and more structured to create a dedicated section, or a pipeline of young fans who genuinely care about baseball. It probably will take a promotion from the Orioles themselves, in the same way they’ve continued to make the Bird Bath a draw for children (and parents who don’t mind getting sprayed with a hose).

What could give Tarps Off — or perhaps a less obvious knockoff — more staying power would be finding a better sense of communal purpose. When I noted to Heim that the section really cleared out when the Os started losing late, he scoffed.

“If you think about it, it should be the opposite,” he said. “If you had your kids in sports, you’d be encouraging them the whole time. The objective of being loud is to give your team good morale.”

Sure enough, as the Tarps Off crowd sheepishly started dressing themselves back to normal, I caught a glimpse of Heim on the jumbotron, trying to rally his fans and the players themselves.

As long as the Orioles and their fans are caught in franchise doldrums, Heim (and sure, even the Tarps Off crew) will likely still be searching for the right balance of giving support and putting on a show. It’s easy to be overwhelmed with energy and team spirit in a sellout. It’s much harder to conjure a buzz on a chilly Tuesday night when Baltimore’s bullpen is straining to keep its lead.

It’s the consistency that actually makes the whole thing work.

“My enthusiasm isn’t for me — it’s because I’m a lifelong fan of the Orioles,” Heim said. “If those kids are doing it for themselves, it will fade. There’s a core of people who really love the team who come to those games. And if it’s for both, it’ll keep it going.”

There may never be a perfect way to be a fan in those conditions, and I suppose I should salute anyone who is willing to put themselves out there and try. An honest effort is all that’s really required.

Shirts, however, are optional.