Cardinal Dominance In Professional Sports

October 27th, 2011. Game 6. Two outs, bottom of the 9th. Two strikes, two runners on base. The team down 7-5. David Freese at the plate. Neftali Feliz on the mound. He throws the 1-2 pitch and... “Into right, well hit. Back at the wall, it’s off the wall. One run scores. Here comes Berkman. Freese has tied it, 7-7. Unbelievable.” Just two innings later, “Freese hits it in the air to center. We will see you tomorrow night.” The calls from Joe Buck. The Cardinals win an unbelievable Game 6 of the World Series. Freese’s triple in the 9th and walk-off home run in the 10th etched him in as one of the great playoff players of all time. As you see, Cardinal dominance continues into the new century, helping the Cardinals be one of America’s greatest

The 1964 World Series was aided by the fact that the Cards added Hall of Famer Lou Brock in the middle of the season with a trade with the Chicago Cubs. The Brock trade proved to be one of the most lopsided trades in MLB history. In Lou’s great Hall of Fame career, he would lead the league in stolen bases on 8 different occasions, once of which included a whopping 118. When he retired after the 1979 season, he rested atop the all-time leaderboard for the

Entering the 2000 season, the Cardinals added big bat Jim Edmonds. The next year rookie Albert Pujols come up to replace the injured Bobby Bonilla. And in the middle of the 2002 season, the Cardinals traded with the Phillies for Scott Rolen. The Cardinals won the Central crown in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006. Led by the “MV3” group, the club won 105 games in 2004 and 100 in 2005.

After the 2005 season, the Cardinals built a new stadium right across the street from the old Busch Stadium. In 2006, the Cardinals limped to the playoffs, but would go on to win their first World Series title in 24 years. They defeated the Tigers in just 5 games, and they kicked off the new stadium with a title. Five years after the team’s last World Championship, after the departure of Edmonds and Rolen, the Cardinals again won the Fall Classic in 2011, and it marked the complete end to the “MV3” when Pujols signed a 10-year contract with the Angels.

Over the 12 year stretch with the three, the Cardinals won 6 Central titles and 3 NL pennants. Rolen won four gold gloves and had five All-Star appearances. Edmonds won 6 gold gloves and had 3 All-Star appearances. He hit 241 home runs in just 8 years for the