Yesterday, this year’s World Series began again with a Phillies win. The Yankees are playing, but the Cardinals are not. So let’s look backward to the 1926 World Series. I realize that this isn’t exactly late breaking news, but it is still a good story. It was also a central part of the baseball exhibit in the museum under the Arch. Here is the story:
In September 1926, the Cardinals clinched the National League pennant while on the East Coast. Without coming home, they took on the New York Yankees in the World Series. Tied after two games, the rivals headed for Saint Louis, where Cardinal fans held a parade to cheer the team for their earlier pennant win. In three games here, the Cardinals couldn’t get ahead of the Yankees. They went back to New York down by one.
In a blowout Game 6, pitcher Grover Cleveland [no not the President] Alexander held the Yankees to two runs against the Redbird’s ten. The winner take all seventh game was more closely fought. By the bottom of the ninth, the Cardinals were defending a one-run lead. With two outs, Babe Ruth was caught trying to steal second. The Cardinals were the 1926 World Champions.
Of the 106 World Series that have been played, the Yankees have won 26, the Cardinals 10 and Athletics 9. 1926 was the first time that the Cardinals were World Champions. Eighty years later in 2006 the Cardinals were again the World Champions. That time it was the Tigers that they faced, not the Yankees. Afterwards the Cardinals had a parade. That Sunday was a beautiful afternoon in Saint Louis. I biked downtown to watch the parade. The Clydesdales were out. All of the players and their families were in the parade. It was a great day to be a Saint Louis Cardinals baseball fan.
Pictures with this post include a 1926 Cardinal’s pennant, a score card from the series, the seventh game’s scoreboard on the final play of the game and a knothole eye’s view of the Cardinals Sportsman’s Park where the Saint Louis side of the series was played. These are all photographs of the baseball exhibit under the Arch. Rey pointed out to me that this park was actually the third so-called Sportsman’s Park built here in Saint Louis. When Anheuser-Busch took over the team, it was eventually renamed Busch Stadium. That would have made it Busch I. The current stadium is effectively Busch III. Time will tell if Cardinal stadiums continue to run in threes. Today’s header shows the ten years in which the Cardinals have won the World Series.
