Shirtless fans cheer at MLB stadiums as "Tarps Off" trend sweeps baseball world
The 'Tarps Off' trend has taken Major League Baseball by storm, with fans removing their shirts and cheering energetically at games. Originating in St. Louis, this phenomenon has spread to various cities, injecting a lively atmosphere into the sport. As attendance rises, the trend may signal a new tradition in baseball fandom.
- ▪The 'Tarps Off' trend began in St. Louis and has quickly spread to other MLB cities.
- ▪Fans are participating by taking off their shirts and twirling them above their heads.
- ▪Attendance at MLB games has increased, averaging about 1,000 more fans per game compared to last year.
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| Original publisher | NPR Topics: News |
| Canonical URL | https://www.npr.org/2026/05/20/nx-s1-5828213/shirtless-fans-mlb-tarps-off-baseball |
| Publication time | Wed, 20 May 2026 03:30:08 -0400 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-05-20T07:40:00.512Z |
| Last seen | 2026-05-20T09:29:57.579Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | L2-ZSg2Ys47L · 2 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| Indexing | May the item be indexed (stored, ranked, made findable)? | Allowed |
| Snippet | May a short excerpt of the publisher's text be shown? | Allowed |
| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Sports Shirtless fans cheer at MLB stadiums as "Tarps Off" trend sweeps baseball world May 20, 20263:30 AM ET By The Associated Press Tampa Bay Rays fans cheer on the team during the eighth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles Monday, May 18, 2026, in St. Petersburg, Fla. Chris O'Meara/AP hide caption toggle caption Chris O'Meara/AP Major League Baseball is experiencing an epidemic of (mostly) guys being dudes. At ballparks all across the country, groups consisting of mostly young men are joining in on the "Tarps Off" trend that's loud, goofy, infectious and new to the baseball world. Joining in on the fun is simple: Go to the section where the party is happening, take off your shirt and start twirling it above your head.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at NPR Topics: News.
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