The video is grainy and its exact origins hazy. John Nogowski, walking up the steps of Lewis and Clark Park, looks “not too sure of himself,” according to his manager at the time. He had just been released by the A's after three years in the organization and had signed with the Sioux City Explorers of the independent American Association for part of the 2017 season. Major League dreams dashed for the moment, self-doubt would be logical.

As he approaches the playing surface, his new canvas, Nogowski turns back to his father, John Sr., shadowing him with the camera rolling. Nogowski reaches the top step and locks eyes with the field for the first time. He exerts a show of confidence -- one he's needed to hold present his entire career -- barely audible over the 18-wheelers on US Route 20 roaring in the backdrop.

“Can hit here,” Nogowski says. Then the home video cuts out.

Nogowski could certainly hit there. He slashed .402/.482/.607 in 34 games for the Explorers.

“To be honest with you,” Steve Montgomery, manager of the Explorers, said recently, “he's not stopped hitting since.”

Now, four years after playing independent baseball, after three years in the Cardinals’ Minor League system and one year after he made a one-game Major League debut, Nogowski, 28, has hit his way into his first sustained taste of The Show with St. Louis. From the roster periphery, the first baseman “elbowed his way onto the team,” as manager Mike Shildt described it, via a torrid Spring Training that showcased a knack of hitting he always held, but one he needed to rediscover.

“We looked up and realized, ‘Wait a minute, this guy can have a good at-bat pretty much against anybody we're going to see,’” Shildt said. “ … He more than earned his spot this year.”

It wasn’t always that Nogowski could swing a sweet bat. He was selected by the A’s in the 34th round of the 2014 MLB Draft out of Florida State, but he put up modest numbers out of the gates. Released before the 2017 season, Nogowski found a new home -- and a new challenge -- in Sioux City.

“Broken is not the right word,” Montgomery said, “but I'll say that he was not in a good place.”

But when the season began, Nogowski didn’t find himself in the Opening Day lineup.

“Then, he walked in my office and said, ‘You'll never take me out of the lineup again,’” Montgomery recalled. “And he was right.”

When he cracked the starting lineup the next day, Nogowski hit eighth for the Explorers. Then, he hit his way up to cleanup.

A few months later, he hit his way into a contract with the Cardinals.

“That’s been kind of my mindset my whole career -- I've taken every single at bat like it's kind of my last at-bat,” Nogowski said. “I didn't have the luxury of saying, ‘Hey, I'm going to get 500 [at-bats] this year, and I can take a couple off.’ I had to grind out every one.”

Nogowski had no other choice. Doing the opposite would have likely resulted in the end of his baseball career. It would have never given him this storybook 2021 that he grabbed hold of and never looked back.

“I just knew if I just kept having good years and kept putting up numbers, kept having good, quality at-bats, that at some point,” Nogowski said, “there's going to be a spot, you know, for a guy like me.”

Nogowski’s playing time will come in spurts this season. A natural first baseman, his role to a starting spot is blocked by perennial MVP Award candidate Paul Goldschmidt, who seldom misses a game.

Seeing as such, Nogowkski placed a premium on playing the outfield in Spring Training. With Harrison Bader sidelined for the first four to six weeks of the season, there may be an opening for him to get reps in the corner-outfield spots, which are lacking production in the early going.

“He will do anything you ask him to do at any time,” Montgomery said. “He's a guy that's at the field from nine in the morning till one o'clock at night.”

It was that type of tenacity and flexibility that the Cardinals couldn’t ignore in spring camp. When Shildt told Nogowski of his place on the Opening Day roster, after he led the club in a plethora of offensive categories, the manager could see the grin on Nogowski’s face beneath the face mask. Nogowski said he had to run out of Shildt’s office to stop from crying.

As he not only gets into games this season but contributes to winning them, like the Cardinals expect, Nogowski will not be making his debut. That came when he was called up from the alternate training site in August of last season, playing a single game in front of no fans -- notching his first career hit, of course -- and then being optioned down.

Nogowski, like any rookie in the 2021 season, is playing in his first Major League game with fans in attendance -- with his family and girlfriend Ashley in attendance.

“That's kind of the most special thing about this whole thing. My debut was incredible, they were watching on TV,” Nogowski said, “but I think to them, this is my debut.”

It’s a debut that, for years on end, seemed like it may never come. Let go by one organization, in the trenches of another, one way or another, Nogowski made it to the big leagues.

“I don't ever really think I struggled with saying, ‘Hey, is this getting too old? Am I getting older?’” Nogowski said. “It doesn't really matter how old you are once you make it.”

“Nogo has not let it end,” Florida State director of baseball operations Chip Baker said recently, “that’s the best part about it.”

Baker, who has been with the program for nearly 40 years, and Nogowski are FSU lifers; Nogowski’s father worked as sports editor for the Tallahassee Democrat for a number of years. As John Sr. covered the FSU dugout, John Jr. grew up in it, with players like Kevin Cash and J.D. Drew on those turn-of-the-century teams. Then, he played for the Seminoles.

Baker spoke with MLB.com from Florida State’s Mike Loynd Tradition Room, whose walls boast a chronological list of every alumnus to have made it to the Major Leagues.

“It goes back to Dick Howser,” Baker said.

“Now the last name on that wall,” he added, “is John Nogowski.”