NICK SCHNELLE
The Cardinals and Missouri Courage Scholarship, the first and largest state-wide LGBTQ scholarship fund in Missouri, announced in a press release on Wednesday that the team's second annual Pride Night will be held on Friday, August 17.
Fans who buy a special Pride Night Theme Ticket to the game will get a Cardinals t-shirt with a rainbow STL logo. A portion of the proceeds from Pride Night tickets will be given to Missouri Courage Scholarship to put toward 2019 scholarships, and the 2018 scholarship recipients will be recognized at the game. The Gateway Men's Chorus is also scheduled to perform "God Bless America" prior to the game.
The Cardinals' first-ever Pride Night took place on August 25, 2017, and was met with both a protest by the Westboro Baptist Church and a counter-protest. The event felt like a longtime coming — years after other Major League clubs hosted LGBTQ nights, the Cardinals still seemed to be dragging their feet. That lasted up til last spring.
Then, last June, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that the team was "actively planning" its first Pride Night, but even then it wasn't clear whether it would be scheduled for the 2017 or 2018 season. In the meantime, anti-LGBTQ speaker Lance Berkman was scheduled to speak at the Cardinals' 27th annual Christian Day. This led to an article on pro-LGBT sports website outsports.com, which raised concern among fans — ultimately leading to the Cardinals announcing that Pride Night that they would indeed a host Pride Night that very season.
And now it's coming back. If you want to get in on the fun this year, Pride Night 2018 tickets can be purchased here. Let's just all promise not to tell Westboro Baptist.
