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St. Louis Cardinals

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St. Louis Cardinals

The St. Louis Cardinals are an American professional baseball team based in St. Louis. The Cardinals compete in Major League Baseball (MLB) as a member club of the National League (NL) Central Division. Since the 2006 season, the Cardinals have played their home games at Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis. One of the nation's oldest and most successful professional baseball clubs, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, the most of any NL team and second in MLB only to the New York Yankees. The team has won 19 National League pennants, third-most of any team behind the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants. St. Louis has also won 15 division titles in the East and Central divisions.

In 1881, entrepreneur Chris von der Ahe purchased the Brown Stockings barnstorming club, renamed it the St. Louis Browns, and made it a charter member of the American Association baseball league. The team won four league championships, qualifying them to play in the era's professional baseball championship series, a forerunner of the modern World Series. In two of these championships, the Browns met the Chicago White Stockings, now the Chicago Cubs, launching the enduring Cardinals–Cubs rivalry.

In 1892, the Browns – also called the Perfectos – joined the National League. In 1900, the team was renamed the Cardinals (Two years later, an unrelated St. Louis Browns team joined the American League).

Notable Cardinals achievements include manager/owner Branch Rickey's invention of the farm system, Rogers Hornsby's two batting Triple Crowns, Dizzy Dean's 30-win season in 1934, Stan Musial's 17 MLB and 29 NL records, Bob Gibson's 1.12 earned run average (ERA) in 1968, Whitey Herzog's Whiteyball dynasty of the 1980s, Mark McGwire's single-season home run record in 1998, the 2011 championship team's unprecedented comebacks, and Albert Pujols’ 700th home run. The Cardinals have won 105 or more games in four seasons and won 100 or more nine times. Cardinals players have won 21 league MVPs, four batting Triple Crowns, and three Cy Young Awards. Baseball Hall of Fame inductees include Lou Brock, Dizzy Dean, Frankie Frisch, Bob Gibson, Chick Hafey, Jesse Haines, Whitey Herzog, Rogers Hornsby, Tony La Russa, Joe Medwick, Johnny Mize, Stan Musial, Red Schoendienst, Ted Simmons, Enos Slaughter, Ozzie Smith, and Billy Southworth.

In 2018, Forbes valued the Cardinals at $1.9 billion, the 7th-highest among MLB clubs and far more than the $147 million paid in 1995 by owner William DeWitt Jr.'s investment group. In 2017, the team took in revenue of $319 million on an operating income of $40.0 million. Chaim Bloom is the President of Baseball Operations and Oliver Marmol is the manager. The Cardinals are renowned for their strong fan support: despite being in one of the sport's mid-level markets, they routinely see attendances among the league's highest, and are consistently among the top three in MLB in local television ratings.

Through 2025, the Cardinals' all-time win-loss record is 11,363–10,486–152 (.520).

Professional baseball began in St. Louis with the Brown Stockings of the National Association (NA) in 1875. The NA folded following that season, and the next season, St. Louis joined the National League as a charter member, finishing in third place at 45–19. George Bradley hurled the first no-hitter in Major League history. The NL expelled St. Louis from the league after 1877 due to a game-fixing scandal and the team went bankrupt. Without a league, they continued play as a semi-professional barnstorming team through 1881.

The magnitudes of the reorganizations following the 1877 and 1881 seasons are such that most historians do not count the 1875–1877 and 1878–1881 Brown Stockings teams as part of the current Cardinals' legacy.

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