Miles Mikolas is a veteran pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. He is known for his calm demeanor and is a family man. Mikolas is married and has four children. In recent years, he left MLB to play in Japan (Yomiuri Giants) and then returned with the determination to “be a better father and player.”
Few people know that Miles Mikolas once had an older brother – Joshua Mikolas, who played ball with him in the backyard as a child in Florida. But Joshua could not go far with Miles.
At the age of 17, Joshua died in a traffic accident on his way to watch Miles play for his high school.
Afterward, Mikolas carefully kept a ball Joshua had thrown – it was covered in sand and had a small blood stain, from Joshua scratching his hand that day. The ball had the words:
“Next time, it’s your turn.”
Miles kept that ball in his glove pocket for more than 15 years – no one knew.
On August 1, 2024, the Cardinals played the Braves. It was the game Mikolas started. When he stepped up to the mound, he was wearing an older hat than usual. Not the Cardinals’, but the high school cap the brothers had worn.
A reporter noticed and asked why. Mikolas just smiled and said,
“I’m not just pitching for the Cardinals today.”
In the eighth inning, Mikolas had 2 outs, 3 balls, 2 strikes. He held up the ball in his hand and looked at it – not the game ball, but Joshua’s old ball that he had hidden under his shirt before the game. He whispered,
“This time… it’s your turn.”
The umpire paused the game, thinking there was a problem, but when the game resumed, Mikolas threw the winning pitch – and put the Braves’ starting pitcher away with a perfect strikeout. The stadium stood up and applauded.
After the game, Mikolas placed the old ball on top of the mound and quietly walked into the tunnel. The coach turned around and saw what he had written on the mound in pencil:
“You’re done, Josh.”
Mikolas’s former teammate wrote on X (Twitter):
“Miles didn’t pitch to win. He pitched to save a soul that was sitting in the stands 15 years ago.”
Not every pitch is a win. Some pitches are about fulfilling an unfulfilled promise – and ending an unfulfilled childhood in the most beautiful way.