Cubs-Cards rivalry
Gmrst...@cs.com
Thanks for the links and to Karlun's comments as well. Obviously both teams have been around for a long time and have had a lot of legendary players - and of course I know how close they are geographically (so I have no trouble seeing how there could be a rivalry) - but as I said before, I can't recall one instance in which, even in a game score recap, the rivalry was mentioned. "The Cubs and Cardinals continued their intense rivalry with the first of a 3-game series in St. Louis Friday night" etc. But clearly I haven't been paying attention as others on the list are chiming in about the rivalry.
The wikipedia link, though written by the general public, kind of illustrates my point though. It may be the markets, as Karlun says - though it's not like we don't hear anything about the Cubs in general and Chicago ain't exactly a tiny media market - but the write-up starts off by listing the all-time won-loss totals between the two teams, as if to suggest they've played some legendary and/or meaningful games but then, after a funny George Will quote and a brief mention of games played in the late 1800's, the write-up pretty much skips straight to 1998 and the Sosa vs. McGwire home run chase. Then it says the rivalry "intensified" in 2003 when Dusty Baker was hired by the Cubs. Did it really? Again, I don't remember reading anything about this and even still, it's supposed to be this legendary rivalry and yet the only examples given are 1998 & 2003?
Yes, perhaps the wiki entry was not the best to prove my point, but then, I didn't spend a lot of time culling through source material.
Just ask Cubs fans about the rivalry if in any doubt.
Often the Cubs and Cards have vyed for dominance in the NL or their part of the NL as it were. If you were a Cubs fan and listened to Cubs radio broadcasts, ther rivalry is always apparent. Even earlier this season there was a dust up between the press and LaRussa in which Tony acknowledged the rivalry and his sensitivity to it.
So, though the wiki link was not the best, I included the other with a far better example of the some of the bad blood attributing to the long standing rivalry.
The Cubs and Cardinals have been facing one another for
decades. And just like the other two rivalries above who can
point at one moment when the rivalry came to a head, the
trading of Babe Ruth and the Shot Heard Round the World, the
Cubs and Cards point to June 15, 1963.
On that fateful day, the Cubs gave up on a young outfielder
named Lou Brock and traded him to the Cards for Ernie Broglio.
The Cubs, who have been losing since the early 1900s, have not
made a World Series since trading Brock. And the Cards have
been to six and won three.
While the Cubs and Cards are known for being civil during their
match-ups, a claim neither the Giants - Dodgers or Yankees - Red
Sox can make, the Cubs and Cards still claim some heart
wrenching moments.
In 1984 the Cubs Ryne Sandberg, who went on to win MVP
honors, hit two dramatic home runs in an extra inning classic off
the Cards Bruce Sutter. And in 1998, with baseball still reeling
from the after effects of the strike, the Cubs Sammy Sosa and the
Cards Mark McGuire faced off in a homerun race for the ages. By
the end of the season both sluggers had buried Roger Maris'
record as McGuire out-slugged Sosa 70 to 66.
But it is now that the Cubs and Cardinals are both fielding great
teams at the same time. They are led by former Bay Area rivals
Tony Larussa and Dusty Baker. In 2003 Baker and the Cubs
were just five outs from a World Series appearance. And in 2004
Larussa and the Cardinals won the National League pennant and
made it to the World Series.
In 2005 the Cards will field a great offensive team that has now
added ace pitcher Mark Mulder. The Cards led baseball in
victories last year and had three players finish in the top five of
MVP voting. The Cubs boast the best rotation in baseball with
Mark Prior, Kerry Wood and Greg Maddux.
This is sure to be a great season as the rivalry continues.
GrnW...@aol.com
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Roger King
Steve Bielawski
skimmed the surface of the topic. Chris, I think you tried to say that
there's a lot more to this rivalry than these links get into, and in
that, you are correct.
This is a legitimate rivalry. There are some rivalries which are
popular in one city but not the other. (e.g., the Padres versus the
Dodgers is popular in San Diego, but in L.A., it's at best a distant
second rivalry. Baltimore used to think that they had a big rivalry
with the Yankees, but of course, Yankees fans thought that their main
rival were the Red Sox.) The Cubs/Cardinals rivalry is indeed big in
both Chicago and St. Louis, as well as points in between (and beyond).
Geography has been mentioned in this rivalry. Before relocation
started in 1953, when MLB had only sixteen teams and they all stayed
put, the Cubs and Cardinals fought for territory not only between
Chicago and St. Louis, but also further west. Both teams tried to get
roots further west, and both used radio broadcasts and other marketing
to make fans of people who lived beyond where major-league baseball was
played.
Going back further, both the Cubs and the Cardinals were strong teams
in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s. The Cubs and Cardinals were often
fighting each other for the pennant in those years, with perhaps
another team or two in the fight. This goes back further than some
Wikipedia writers will remember, but this period holds either the roots
or at least a good part of the rivalry.
It is true that in 1969, when the National League split into two
divisions, the Cubs and Cardinals requested that both remain in the
East. It is true that the two teams wanted to remain together, to keep
their rivalry going. However, they could have kept their rivalry going
by both being in the N.L. West. Atlanta and Cincinnati were placed in
the West, and both are significantly further to the east than Chicago,
much less St. Louis, so the geographically-correct divisional alignment
would not have separated the teams. (It did, however, separate the
Reds and Pirates, but not the Pirates and Phillies, which led to the
cross-Pennsylvania rivalry getting stronger.) I suspect that the real
reason why the Cubs and Cardinals wanted to be in the East was that
they didn't want to play too many games on the West Coast. (That's
somewhat odd, since both Chicago and St. Louis are in the Central Time
Zone, so they are only two hours away from the Pacific Time Zone. Late
starts aren't quite as late for them. But, the broadcasting ratings
were crucial to both teams, and to their radio partners.)
Roger, I think that the fact that you haven't heard too much about the
rivalry may be because the broadcasters who get to national podiums
tend to have been in a market where one of the other two rivalries was
king. Fewer people come to national prominence after doing the sports
in Chicago or St. Louis. But that rivalry was and is quite big in that area.
Andrew Christianson
their long, bad seasons. Cardinal fans were more interested in winning the
World Series. I still hate that we played the Cardinals in the Series last
year, because I liked them much more before last October than I do now.
My understanding of the true battleground in the Cards/Cubs rivalry is the
middle part of Illinois, where people have had to choose which side to place
themselves. While Chicago and St. Louis aren't that far apart, the entire
drive is in the state of Illinois. So youngsters in Springfield or
Bloomington have to choose between the loveable Cubbies from their home
state or a team that has actually won something in the last 100 years.
Notice no mention of the White Sox, who actually play closer to this region
than the Cubs.
The rivalry kind of reminds me of Vikings/Packers in this part of the world.
Viking fans just go nuts about playing the Packers...and we hate the
Bears. The championship comparison works too.
Andrew
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Steve Bielawski
--- Andrew Christianson <chri...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> My understanding of the true battleground in the Cards/Cubs
> rivalry is the middle part of Illinois, where people have
> had to choose which side to place themselves.
It's a bit more complicated than that. Iowa is also a battleground.
And it used to go a lot further west, but that's not to big any more.
The Twins, Brewers, and Royals all have at least some territorial
claims that used to be part of the Cubs/Cardinals rivalry.
Expansion and relocation are not the only factors that have changed the
rivalry. The advent of television had an effect, too; people west of
Chicago and St. Louis could pick up the games on radio, but they
couldn't pick up television signals as easily. That changed the
dynamic of the rivalry for those who weren't too close to either city.
> While Chicago and St. Louis aren't that far apart, the
> entire drive is in the state of Illinois. So youngsters
> in Springfield or Bloomington have to choose between
> the loveable Cubbies from their home state or a team that
> has actually won something in the last 100 years.
You touch on another change in the dynamic of the rivalry, that the
teams weren't always as evenly matched. In the first half of the
twentieth century, the Cubs and Cardinals were often fighting each
other for the league championship. In the 1950s, the Cubs fell on
harder times. They made a rebound in the late 1960s/early 1970s (the
Ron Santos/Don Kessinger era), and the rivalry resumed. It came up
again when the Cubs did well with Ryne Sandberg, culminating in a 1984
division championship. The Cubs have been hot and cold since, but when
they heat up, so does the rivalry.
> Notice no mention of the White Sox, who actually play closer to this
> region than the Cubs.
The White Sox typically were also-rans in the A.L. during the period
from 1920 (when the Black Sox scandal was exposed) and 2005. They won
an A.L. championship in 1959, but didn't have any other very good years
around then. They won the A.L. West in 1983, and won handily, but
weren't close to the race before or after that.
It's hard to get a rivalry going between teams in different leagues.
The Mets, White Sox, Angels, and Athletics are all pretty much
runners-up in their own back yards. (They are a distant second to the
Yankees, Cubs, Dodgers, and Giants.) The one exception to that was the
Yankees/Giants/Dodgers rivalry back in New York City before 1958.
(Giants fans think it was a three-way rivalry, although some Yankees
and Dodgers fans will disagree. It was a three-way rivalry when the
Giants were good, that is true. If it weren't, the Giants wouldn't
have lasted nearly that long in New York.) While the Angels have found
ways to grow their fanbase in recent years (I believe the technical
name for the process is "world championship"), the Dodgers still are
the most popular team in that area. The point is that in most cases,
one team or the other dominates the area.
Other rivalries that aren't that big, despite what the commissioner
thinks (as he schedules interleague play) are Royals/Cardinals,
Indians/Reds, and Rangers/Astros. Part of the problem with these
rivalries, as well as the ones mentioned above, is that the teams
aren't competing for a championship against each other. It's like a
rivalry between, say, the University of Michigan and Wayne State
University. Both teams can win their own league, so there isn't such a
necessity to win the game in order to win the league.
It's also hard to get excited about a rivalry when one of the potential
rivals is decidedly stronger than the other. (Again, the
Dodgers/Giants rivalry in New York was an exception to this.) The
Tigers and Indians could have had a good rivalry if only they had both
had strong teams at the same time, but that has rarely happened since
Ty Cobb retired. The Pirates/Phillies rivalry has had that same
problem; one team would always be distinctly better than the other.
It's not easy to get a rivalry when one side gets trounced all the
time. (Granted, it does happen--Michigan/Michigan State is not exactly
an even match year in and year out, and yet it is certainly a rivalry.)
Gmrst...@cs.com
(Granted, it does happen--Michigan/Michigan State is not exactly
an even match year in and year out, and yet it is certainly a rivalry.)
I'd say the OSU-UofM rivalry may be more virulent.
At least some of us UofM fans will cheer on MSU when they are in a tournament and the Wolverines are not. But I don't know many fans who will ever wish any success for the Buckeyes.
-cbt
Tony Matt
> The advent of television had an effect, too; people west of
> Chicago and St. Louis could pick up the games on radio, but
> they couldn't pick up television signals as easily. That
> changed the dynamic of the rivalry for those who weren't
> too close to either city.
I don't see this at all. TV coverage of the games didn't
significantly displace radio coverage, so I'd expect most
people without TV coverage would just keep listening to the
games on radio (as did my grandfather in Ironwood). Night
games would have competition from prime-time TV shows, but
obviously there weren't night games happening in Wrigley in
the 50s and 60s (not sure about St. Louis).
TM