Stand up and salute the St. Louis Cardinals. Cheers aren't enough to celebrate the worst team ever to reach the World Series.
Anybody can win with loads of talent. The Yankees have done it forever. What a bore. Anybody can win titles with a hard-hitting catcher such as Jorge Posada, Yogi Berra or Bill Dickey. Try staking your chances of a pennant on a .216-hitting defensive specialist of a catcher such as Yadier Molina, the Cardinal who hit a two-run, game-winning homer Thursday night in the ninth inning of Game 7 of the National League Championship Series here at dumbstruck Shea Stadium.
What the Cards just pulled off with a 3-1 win over the New York Mets — built on seven two-hit innings by starter Jeff Suppan and a deft RBI squeeze bunt by humble second baseball Ronnie Belliard — is a vastly tougher and nobler trick. Who's been carrying the banner for the Cards this entire month? Has it been all-stars or Hall of Fame candidates? Or journeymen and obscure gentlemen who earn their keep with their gloves? If the youngest of the three catching Molina brothers and the little-known vet Belliard drove in all the runs in this winner-take-all game, then that simply mirrors this entire October for the Cards.
In this Series, Albert Pujols had one RBI. Molina had six RBI and utility man Scott Spiezio, the hero of Game 2, had five. Even So Taguchi, who only batted three times, had a single, double, home run and three RBI. Rookie Chris Duncan, tiny David Eckstein and Suppan himself each contributed an unlikely solo homer in this series, duplicating Pujols's production. No, there's never been a team that ever got to the World Series the way this one did, with no wins from its Cy Young candidate and only a tiny dose of Albert Who? As for this game's save, it went to rookie Adam Wainwright, who'd never saved a game in his short career until the last week of September. Now, he's shutting down a mob of 56,357 at Shea Stadium.
In their final playoff game of '05, the Cards' starting lineup included outfielders Larry Walker and Reggie Sanders, hitting fourth and fifth, as well as Mark Grudzielanek and Abraham Nuñez. All are now gone because of free agency, retirement or injury. What did the Cards get in return for these nine front-line players? Not much.
They've been replaced with six rookies, two other players with barely a year in the majors, two ex-Washington Nats (Preston Wilson and Gary Bennett) plus assorted castoffs (Jeff Weaver, 3-10 as an Angel) and journeymen (Juan Encarnacion, Spiezio, Belliard). This isn't a traditional regal Cardinals pennant winner. It's a ragtag, patched-together, barely-upgraded-at-the-trading-deadline bunch of overachievers with two superstars — Albert Pujols and Chris Carpenter — on top.
Remember Jim Edmonds, Scott Rolen and David Eckstein? They're still around. Edmonds plays center field despite lingering effects from post-concussion syndrome. Rolen is a shadow of his all-star self with five screws in his shoulder. He's even been benched recently. More parts of Eckstein are hurt than are healthy. "The toughest player I've ever seen," Manager Tony La Russa said.
Why just call them "the toughest team." Just three weeks ago, St. Louis had lost eight games in the standings to Houston in nine days as the NL Central — and the playoffs — almost slipped away. With their lead down to a half-game on Sept. 29, the Cards crawled out of their grave and have been haunting the sport ever since. Now, instead of being paired with the '64 Pholdin' Phillies, the Cardinals have a chance to become, by such a wide margin that it's silly, the most unlikely scrappy underdog world champ in baseball's long annals.
Only one team has ever reached the Fall Classic with fewer wins than the Cards' 83 victories this season — the '73 Mets with 82. But those Mets rolled into October with a healthy rotation of Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Jon Matlack, with Tug McGraw to close the show. These Cards aren't anywhere close to those Mets for quality. St. Louis just subtracted Mark Mulder, Jason Marquis and Jason Isringhausen, all mainstays of their staff in recent years, within recent weeks.
If you think these five-games-over-.500 Cards can't really be the worst Series team ever, think about this. Only four other Series teams have finished less than 15 games above .500. So, it's a short list. The '00 Yanks and '87 Twins both won the World Series. The '97 Indians had Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, David Justice and Matt Williams.
How do the Cardinals win? With players such as reliever Josh Kinney from the River City Rascals in the independent Pioneer (Nobody Wants You) League and So Taguchi, a Punch-and-Judy hitter for 10 years for the Orix Blue Wave in Japan. In his four postseason at bats, Taguchi has two homers, a double and a single. So what else is new?
Oh, and don't forget the best Cards pitcher so far in October -- Weaver, who flopped in the playoffs for the Yanks ('02) and Dodgers ('04) before getting salary-dumped in disgust in July by the Angels. At that time, he was the worst starting pitcher in the AL (6.29 ERA). Now this reclamation project, who's 2-1 in postseason (a 2.08 ERA), will start Game 2 in Motown.
And there's Suppan, who waited until Game 4 against the Mets to hit the first home run of his big-league life. Naturally, it hit the top of the left field wall and bounced over. All season, Suppan never pitched eight innings in any of his 32 starts. So, he went eight shutout innings in Game 4, then went seven in Game 7. Move over, Bob Gibson.
We're not talking supernatural here. But it's pretty close.
Remember all those gaudy teams from Oakland and St. Louis that La Russa took to the Series in '88, '90 and '04 that won 104, 103 and 105 regular season games? They defined underachieving, going 1-12 in the Series. Now, in his 29th season as a big-league manager, La Russa has the gamest and most appealing team of underdog October darlings in decades.
Of course, nobody will give these Cards a chance against the Tigers. Why, they'll be as pathetic underdogs as the '88 Dodgers and the '90 Reds when they met those juggernaut Bash Brothers from Oakland.
Ask Tony how those "mismatched" World Series turned out.
