Red Birds Play Ball

So my beloved Mets aren’t going to take it all this year after all. As they say, there’s always next year. This time, they were undone by a team named for a bright red bird. The St. Louis Cardinals are a potent team to be sure. However, when it comes to the World Series, statistics show that the big leagues aren’t exactly bird-friendly. You have to go back a long way to find a championship for the birds:

2005 – ivory footwear over beings from the stars
2004 – scarlet footwear over red birds
2003 – big fish over northeasterners
2002 – celestial beings over individuals of enormous size
2001 – venomous snakes over northeasterners
2000 – northeasterners over city dwellers
1999 – northeasterners over indigenous American warriors
1998 – northeasterners over Christian priests
1997 – big fish over indigenous Americans
1996 – northeasterners over indigenous American warriors
1995 – indigenous American warriors over indigenous Americans
1994 – not held
1993 – azure avians over denizens of Philadelphia

Twelve long years have passed since a team named for a bird won the World Series. And it’s not that the last decade has been especially rough for avian athletes in baseball. Out of 101 championships, only 14 have been won by bird clubs.

You might not want to completely discount the Cards’ chances though. The St. Louis Cardinals is one of the winningest (this is a real word in the sports world) franchises in all of baseball in terms of World Series crowns, behind only the storied New York Yankees. Clearly, their name change way back in 1900 earned the respect of the baseball gods. What was their name before that? The Perfectos!