St. Louis Cardinals Tickets : The Cardinals Were Considered Strong Contenders For The League Pennant

The St. Louis Cardinals are a professional baseball team based in St. Louis, Missouri. They are members of the Central Division in the National League of Major League Baseball. The Cardinals have won 10 World Series championships, tops in the National League and second in MLB only to the American League's New York Yankees, who have 27.

The Cardinals were founded in the American Association in 1882 as the St. Louis Brown Stockings, taking the name from an earlier National League team. They joined the National League in 1892 and have been known as the Cardinals since 1900.

The Cardinals began playing in the current Busch Stadium in 2006, and were the first team since the Yankees in 1923 to win the World Series in their first season in a new ballpark (the Yankees would repeat the feat in 2009 at the new Yankee Stadium). The Cardinals have a long standing rivalry with the Chicago Cubs as well as a newer rivalry with the Houston Astros.

The new millennium brought new success. The Cardinals, led primarily by Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and a decent pitching roster, won the NL Central in six of seven years. The Cardinals reached the playoffs in 2000, 2001, and 2002, then missed in 2003. In 2004, the Cardinals won 105 games, the best record in baseball, then defeated the Dodgers in the NLDS and the Houston Astros in a seven-game NLCS to reach the 2004 World Series against the Boston Red Sox.

The Red Sox swept the Cards at Busch Stadium, and because the American League had home field advantage for having won the All-Star Game, Busch Stadium was where the Curse of the Bambino died.

The Cardinals lost only 4 times in a shutout in the regular season, but were shut out 3 times in the postseason, including 1 shutout loss every series in the playoffs (4/0 to the Dodgers in Game 3 of the NLDS, 3/0 to the Astros in Game 5 of the NLCS, and 3/0 to the Red Sox in Game 4 of the World Series).

The Cardinals won 100 games and another Central Division title in 2005, but lost in an NLCS rematch to the Astros.In 2006, the Cardinals moved to the new Busch Stadium. Despite winning only 83 games during the season, the Cardinals defeated the San Diego Padres in the NLDS and the New York Mets in a seven game NLCS. In the 2006 World Series, the Cardinals faced the heavily-favored Detroit Tigers, but won in five games for the franchise's tenth World Series title.

On August 22, 2009, they defeated the San Diego Padres for the 10,000th win in franchise history, becoming only the fourth team to accomplish the feat, after the San Francisco Giants, Chicago Cubs, and Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cardinals became the first Major League Baseball club to clinch a division title in 2009, beating the Colorado Rockies on September 26. The Cardinals were considered strong contenders for the league pennant because of their strong starting pitching and offense, but were swept in three games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the best-of-five National League Division Series, despite having beaten the Dodgers five of seven times in the regular season.

The 2009 season also saw three Cardinal players lead the National League in three categories. Pujols's 47 home runs was tops in the majors, pitcher Adam Wainwright's 19 wins was the most in the National League, and Chris Carpenter's ERA of 2.24 was the best in the National League. Pujols won the MVP award, while Carpenter and Wainwright finished 2nd and 3rd in Cy Young Award voting. Carpenter was also named the National League's Comeback Player of the Year.

The 2000s were not all happiness and light. On June 18, 2002, long-time Cardinals radio broadcaster Jack Buck died. Four days later, Cardinals starting pitcher Darryl Kile died in his sleep, apparently of heart failure, before a game in Chicago against the Cubs. On April 29, 2007, also during a series with the Cubs, Cardinals relief pitcher Josh Hancock, 29, was killed in a car accident while driving drunk when his vehicle collided with a stopped tow truck that was aiding a disabled motorist on Interstate 64, not far from Busch Stadium.