The St. Louis Cardinals, a professional baseball franchise based in St. Louis, Missouri, compete in the National League (NL) of Major League Baseball (MLB). After decades of early futility in the National League, St. Louis baseball encountered a renaissance with 11 World Series titles and 18 National League pennants since 1926. Sam Breadon's purchase of the majority stake in the club in 1920 spurred this revival; he then assumed the role as team president and assigned the young, enterprising Branch Rickey as his business manager, functioning as a prototype of today's general manager. In his tenure as owner until 1947, Breadon's Cardinals won nine NL pennants and six World Series titles. During this era in Cardinals franchise history, they also totaled 2,898 wins and 2,171 losses in the regular season for a .572 winning percentage.
Branch Rickey and Rogers Hornsby (1921–1929) Rickey builds the farm system
After Breadon named Rickey the Cardinals' business manager, he also served as the in-game manager for six uneventful seasons. In 1926, Breadon replaced Rickey with Rogers Hornsby as the field manager to allow him to concentrate fully on the front office. Nicknamed The Mahatma, Rickey began to accumulate knowledge and master the use of scouting and player development and forged connections with D-League and AA teams, known as the "minor leagues". At this time, the minor leagues ran autonomous of the major leagues. To acquire minor league talent, the custom for a major league team was to purchase the player from the minor league team either outright or bid through an auction. As part of a National Agreement in 1921 between the major leagues and minor leagues when federal judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis was hired as the first Commissioner of Baseball in , a ban forbidding major league clubs from owning minor league clubs was lifted. To prevent players from stagnating in the minor leagues and ensure they had the opportunity to advance to major league clubs, Landis implemented a policy that allowed major league clubs to draft players who spent two consecutive seasons on one minor league team.
In 1919, Rickey purchased an eighteen percent stake in the Texas League club Houston Buffaloes, then acquired interests in players in two minor leagues and a number of other teams. From these connections, Rickey blueprinted and revolutionized a farm system––an assembly line of young talent in the minor leagues which allowed the Cardinals to develop without risk of interference or losing them to other major league clubs. His approach to "farming prospects" supplanted the practice of bidding to acquire top minor league players from independent teams and allowed control of minor leaguers and their development at little cost. To fund the further establishment of the Cardinals farm system, Rickey sold the Cardinals' ballpark, Robison Field––which had become riddled with defects over the years––and moved the club across town to Sportsman's Park to become tenants of their American League rivals, the Browns. The Cardinals farm system proved so successful that it led to the franchise's second golden era that persisted throughout Breadon's tenure, including nine World Series appearances between 1926 and 1946. All other 15 major league clubs followed suit, and it is a practice still employed by all Major League teams today and other major professional sports. For this, Rickey is credited with expanding many of the operational and player development techniques that overlap what is common to today's general manager.
Rickey's development of the Cardinals minor league system invariably did not elude its share of obstacles. Landis disliked the farm system model as he felt that it damaged the fabric of baseball by mitigating competitive gamesmanship for pennant races and lionizing season-long exhibition play. Soon after his appointment as commissioner, Landis caught owners off guard by implementing a policy requiring major league clubs to disclose their minor league interests. The primary goal of this policy was to discourage "covering up", or the act of major league teams switching players between two minor league clubs without the intention of actually promoting them in order to make them ineligible for the draft. Landis also censured major league clubs from controlling two affiliates within the same league. It was by reason of an arrangement in this fashion that Landis declared future Hall of Famer Chuck Klein a free agent upon discovering the Cardinals owned affiliates in Dayton and Fort Wayne that played in the same league.
One of Rickey's recruits for the Browns, George Sisler, became a major star in the early 1920s. Outdrawing their tenants substantially, the Browns came within one game of the AL pennant in 1922. However, the tide was about to turn in the Cardinals' favor. After confidently predicting there would be a World Series in Sportsman's Park by 1926, Browns owner Phil Ball invested in extensive upgrades in its anticipation, including increasing the park's capacity from 18,000 to 30,000. Ball was correct––a World Series was about to be played in Sportsman's Park in 1926—but one of the participants did not include the Browns.
St. Louis returns to the top Longtime starting pitcher Jesse Haines débuted with the Cardinals in 1920, registering just above 300 innings that year. He won 210 career games in his career and was instrumental in the Cardinals' World Series wins in 1926, 1931 and 1934.
Led by Hornsby on the field, winner of Triple Crowns in both 1922 and 1925, the Cardinals transformed into serious contenders. Nicknamed Rajah for his leadership as a player-manager, Hornsby took home the MVP honors in 1925, becoming the first in franchise history to do so. He also led the National League in batting average six straight seasons from 1920 to 1925, including .424 in 1924––which has not been matched since––three times hit over .400, and is the only player to hit over 40 home runs with a .400 batting average in a season (1922). Hornsby is generally considered the best-hitting second baseman of all time, and his .358 lifetime batting average is second only to Ty Cobb.
Concurrent with Hornsby's hitting, St. Louis won their first National League pennant in 1926 and faced the New York Yankees in a World Series that lasted seven games. Of the eight original National League teams, St. Louis was the last to win the league championship. Grover Cleveland Alexander, brought over from the Cubs in a trade earlier that season, won Games 2 and 6. Game 7 climaxed into a match as Hornsby summoned him to relieve Haines with the bases loaded in the bottom of the seventh inning with a 3–2 lead. Likely still hungover from celebrating his own victory the day before, Alexander faced Tony Lazzeri, who scorched a long foul ball that had the distance to be a home run. However, Lazzeri struck out on a low-and-away curveball to end the threat. It was also a guarded secret that both men suffered from epilepsy. With the Cardinals still clinging to a 3–2 lead in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees again threatened. Babe Ruth drew a two-out walk but was thrown out attempting to steal second base to end the game, giving the Cardinals their first World Series win and first interleague championship in forty years.
Due to constant conflicts, Breadon traded Hornsby to the New York Giants after the Cardinals' World Series win for fellow second baseman Frankie Frisch. The 1926 NL MVP Bob O'Farrell––the first catcher to win an MVP––took over as player-manager, but the Cardinals fells short of the pennant in 1927. Breadon again traded the manager after the season, complaining O'Farrell kept pitchers in games too long and that the Cardinals did not win the pennant. The Cardinals claimed the next NL pennant in 1928, edging the powerful New York Giants by two games and the Chicago Cubs by four. Ironically, the pitching staff completed 83 games and Jim Bottomley won the MVP, pacing the National League with 93 extra base hits, including 31 home runs, 20 triples, and 136 RBIs.
With the Cardinals collecting momentum as a National League powerhouse, they created a stir in St. Louis not consistently seen since their four consecutive pennants in the American Association. However, the New York Giants and familiar rivals the Chicago Cubs showed themselves as co-adversaries in a newly emerging and tightly contested NL regime. Between 1926 and 1946, the three teams combined for 17 of the 21 pennants.
Dizzy Dean and the Gashouse Gang take a World Series (1930–1934) The Cardinals kept winning in the next decade, claiming back-to-back pennants in 1930 and 1931, with Frisch taking MVP honors in 1931. On the last day of the 1930 season, Jay Hanna Dizzy Dean made his Major League debut, pitching a complete-game, three-hit shutout. The 1930 Cardinals are the only team in history featuring all players who totaled at least 300 at-bats also batting at least .300, and are the last National League team to score 1,000 runs in a season with 1,004. Matching up with the Philadelphia Athletics in both World Series, St. Louis lost in 1930 but won the 1931 series. In the 1931 series, Pepper Martin's 12 hits, four doubles and five stolen bases spurred an otherwise dismal offense.
Dean starred for the Cardinals as one of baseball's premier pitchers from 1932 to 1937, with four All-Star Games, leading the NL in wins and shutouts twice, strikeouts four times, complete games and innings pitched three times, while procuring an MVP award with two runner-up finishes. He also carried a distinctive persona when off the mound. Dean was a robust, zany, quasi-Yogi Berra-prototype who uttered such memorable quotes as, "It ain't bragging if you can do it", "Son, what kind of pitch would you like to miss?", "He slud into third", "I ain't what I used to be, but who the hell is?", "The doctors x-rayed my head and found nothing", "The good Lord was good to me. He gave me a strong body, a good right arm, and a weak mind", and "It puzzles me how they know what corners are good for filling stations. Just how did they know gas and oil was under there?" His uninhibited nature and willingness to become a lightning rod for criticism garnered massive popularity with teammates, fans and media alike. After retiring as a player, Dean augmented even more popularity as a sportscaster and was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1953.
After a drop-off into mediocrity in 1932 and 1933, the Gashouse Gang took St. Louis back to the top in 1934. A collection of colorful characters that complemented Dean during the Great Depression, they captivated an audience that far surpassed St. Louis city limits "when people needed a diversion from hard times and economic gloom." Due in part to a strong radio signal, St. Louis gained a status as a "regional team" with their locale as the southern- and westernmost Major League city that lasted until 1955, when the Philadelphia Athletics moved to Kansas City. Coupled with the Cardinals' enormous success in the 1920s and 1930s in contrast with the Browns' dismal play, their popularity spiked.