About the St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team which plays in the central division of the National League in Major League Baseball (MLB). Their central division opponents include; the Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, Pittsburgh Pirates and the Milwaukee Brewers. The St. Louis Cardinals play home games at Busch Memorial Stadium in downtown St. Louis.

After the American Association folded in 1891, the St. Louis Browns joined the National league. They struggled for a while in the NL and got sold to brothers who renamed them the Perfectos and slapped some new uniforms on the players, with distinctive colors that led to the team being called the St. Louis Cardinals. More struggling years followed with the gem being a 1914 3rd place finish, their highest in about forty years, before fans bought the team and hired some front office people who really knew how to run a club in 1920.

Two years later, St. Louis Cardinals Rogers Hornsby won a triple crown for batting (42, 152, .401), this was the first of many big years for Rogers Bornsby who won the triple crown again, amongst other trophies, en route to 1926, when the club were never caught stealing in the season and won their first World Series. Again they won pennants in 1928 and 1930 before winning it all with rookie Pepper Martin stealing five times hitting 12 for 24 in the WS. When star St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Dizzy Dean heard his brother would pitch for the team as well, he boasted that they would combine for 45 victories, but instead got 49 on their way to the 1934 World Series win. 1937 was the last time an NL player won a triple crown, and it was Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals.

Their 1942 team with 106 wins and World Series championship is one of the best teams all time, featuring NL MVP pitcher Mort Cooper and a pair of rookies that came from the St. Louis Cardinals system. Stan Musial kept the NL MVP in the team the next year, leading in most offensive stats, as the St. Louis Cardinals won the pennant. Musial brought the team to the 1946 World Series, which they won, in another NL MVP performance, again leading in nearly all offensive categories and repeated it again in 1948. For a while the team did not create a stir, except Musial getting five homers in a doubleheader, played 895 consecutive games, got his 3,000th hit, and won seven batting titles before retiring in 1963 with .331 lifetime.

After Stan Musial came Lou Brock in the 1970's, getting hit number 2,700 and coming within seven of Ty Cobb's career stolen base in the same season, 1976. Following that would be a 1977 season full of St. Louis Cardinals record breakers as Brock pushed past Ty Cobb in stolen bases, Garry Templeton was the youngest ML player to hit 200 times in a season, and Ted Simmons set the club record for homers by a catcher. Brock and Templeton kept it up through 1979 when Templeton became the first player to ever hit 100 times from both sides of the plate and Brock became the all time leader in stolen bases. Co-winning the NL MVP award, though, was Keith Hernandez of the St. Louis Cardinals. If it were not for the strike midseason in 1981, the St. Cardinals would have played in the playoffs, with the best winning percentage in the east, they played fewer games than the two teams that went to the World Series.

That did not hold them back, as their pitching and stealing bases led the team with fewest home runs without losing more than three games consecutively before clinching their division and the World Series win for 1982. Inconsistency held down the St. Louis Cardinals for two years, but they kept stealing bases and with NL MVP Willie McGee, Rookie of the Year Vince Coleman, and Ozzie Smith the St. Louis Cardinals sat atop the NL once again in 1985. while they did not repeat, Coleman did become the first player to steal 100 bases in each of his frist two years and they again had the Rookie of the Year with Todd Worrell being the first MLB rookie to lead the league in saves. Mixing vets and youth, the 1987 St. Louis Cardinals took the pennant with stellar offense. Jose Oquendo played every position in 1988. Despite solid playing from the St. Louis Cardinals over the next few years, injuries held them back. Ozzie Smith retired in 1996 after taking most of the short stop records. Mark McGwire came in 1997 and hit 70 homers in 1999, a year before they ruled their division. Not expected to do much in 2004, they followed Scott Rolen, Jim Edmonds, Alber Pjols, and Larry Walker into the World Series, where they lost to Boston.