St. Louis Cardinals
St. Louis Cardinals, American professional baseball team established in 1882 that plays in the National League (NL). Based in St. Louis, Missouri, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series titles and 23 league pennants. Second only to the New York Yankees in World Series championships, St. Louis is the oldest major league team west of the Mississippi River and one of baseball’s most consistently successful franchises.
Originally known as the Brown Stockings (1882) and the Browns (1883–98) and playing in the American Association (AA), the franchise met with almost immediate success, winning four consecutive AA pennants from 1885 to 1888. In 1892 the team moved to the NL, where it struggled, finishing in last or second to last place in five of their first seven seasons in the new league. In 1900 the franchise became known as the Cardinals after one year with the nickname “Perfectos.” The team continued to play poorly through the first two decades of the 20th century, but in 1915 it added future Hall of Fame infielder Rogers Hornsby, who sparked a Cardinals turnaround. In 1926 Hornsby guided the team to its first pennant in 38 years and a berth in the World Series, where the “Cards” defeated the New York Yankees in seven games. Another all-time great infielder, Frankie Frisch, led the Cardinals to three World Series appearances between 1928 and 1931, including one series win (1931). In 1934 future Hall of Fame pitcher Dizzy Dean won 30 games (and his brother Paul won 19) for a charismatic World Series-winning Cardinals team with a rough-and-tumble style that earned it the nickname “the Gashouse Gang.”
In 1941 Stan Musial joined the club. Musial became arguably the Cardinals’ most beloved star, playing 22 seasons in St. Louis and leading the team during the most successful period in franchise history. The Cardinals teams of the 1940s finished first or second in the NL standings in every year of the decade save one. They appeared in four World Series over that span and won three of them (1942, 1944, 1946), the last of which was famous for outfielder Enos Slaughter breaking an eighth-inning tie with the Boston Red Sox in the deciding seventh game by scoring from first base on a line drive over the shortstop’s head—a tremendous demonstration of hustle that became known as the “Mad Dash.”
After a period of relative decline in the 1950s, the 1960s brought another Cardinals renaissance. Led by the dynamic pitching of Bob Gibson and the speedy Lou Brock, the Cardinals played in three seven-game World Series in the decade, with their series wins in 1964 and 1967 coming against the Yankees and the Red Sox, respectively. The Cardinals’ 1964 championship was notable for ending the Yankees’ remarkable mid-century dynasty that saw the New York team win 14 pennants in 16 seasons. In 1966 the team moved into Busch Memorial Stadium (renamed Busch Stadium in 1982), which would serve as the franchise’s home until 2005. The team began to play in a new ballpark, also called Busch Stadium, in 2006. In 1970 the Cardinals traded away outfielder Curt Flood, who then sued Major League Baseball to challenge the club’s ability to trade him without his permission, which later led to the establishment of free agency. The outstanding defensive shortstop Ozzie Smith joined the team in 1982 and helped them win the World Series in his first year in St. Louis. Smith’s Cardinal teams returned twice more to the World Series in the 1980s, losing both times.
In 1996 the Cardinals hired manager Tony La Russa, who would go on to become the winningest manager in team history. The following year, St. Louis added slugger Mark McGwire, whose chase of the single-season home run record in 1998 made him a local icon (though allegations of steroid use would later damage his reputation among Cardinal fans). Superstar slugger Albert Pujols joined the team in 2001 and led them to a return to the World Series in 2004, which was a sweep at the hands of the resurgent Red Sox. In 2006 an underdog Cardinals squad advanced to the World Series, where it easily defeated the favoured Detroit Tigers to become the champion with the lowest regular-season winning percentage in baseball history, after having posted a win-loss record of 83–79.
The Cardinals made just one postseason appearance between 2007 and 2010, a Division Series loss in 2009, but in 2011 St. Louis staged a remarkable comeback to advance to the playoffs after trailing the Atlanta Braves by 8 1/2 games in the Wild Card standings with just a month left in the regular season. The Cardinals then upset both the Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers in the postseason to advance to the World Series. There St. Louis defeated the Texas Rangers in a dramatic seven-game series that included an 11-inning game six in which the Cardinals twice came within one strike of losing the World Series before getting timely hits to extend—and eventually win—the contest.
After losing a seven-game NL Championship Series (NLCS) to the eventual-champion San Francisco Giants in 2012, the Cardinals again won their way into the World Series in 2013, where the team was defeated by the Red Sox in six games. The team’s run of success continued in 2014 with another division title and a berth in the NLCS (a five-game loss to the Giants). After setting a franchise record with its fifth straight postseason berth in 2015, the Cardinals failed to reach the playoffs in 2016. The team then posted a series of winning seasons that failed to result in a postseason berth until 2019, when St. Louis captured a division title and advanced to the NLCS, where the team was swept by the Washington Nationals. The Cardinals also qualified for the playoffs in the 2020 and 2021 seasons—the former of which was shortened due to the COVID-19 pandemic—but both times the team lost in the Wild Card round.