CUBS AND CARDINALS RIVALRY HISTORY

There ain’t many rivalries in base ball that carry the kind of weight you feel when St. Louis and Chicago meet, and I’ve been around long enough to remember when it wasn’t yet a rivalry — just two clubs trying to prove which city held the stronger nine.

It goes back proper to 1881, when Chris von der Ahe, a saloon man with a sharp eye for opportunity, took hold of a traveling Brown Stockings club and set it down firm as the St. Louis Browns. The following year, 1882, that club stood as a charter member of the American Association, a league built to challenge the established order of the National League.

And right there, waiting on the other side, were the Chicago White Stockings.

Now those Chicago clubs — what folks today know as the Cubs — were already a strong outfit, disciplined and winning ballgames under a style that prized order and control. When the Browns rose up in the American Association, it didn’t take long before the two cities began measuring themselves against one another.

By 1885, the Browns had built themselves into a powerhouse. That club was one to go crazy over, folks — I mean crazy. They played fast, bold, and with a kind of confidence that carried clear across the Mississippi. That year, they met Chicago in what passed for the game’s championship series.

It wasn’t clean.

It wasn’t settled neat.

But it was fierce.

The series ended disputed, arguments still carried in the papers, but what mattered more was that something had been set in motion. St. Louis and Chicago were no longer just clubs in different leagues — they were rivals.

In 1886, they met again.

This time, St. Louis took hold of the series proper, beating Chicago and stamping their authority as the stronger club of that moment. If 1885 lit the fuse, 1886 set it burning steady. The cities took notice. The players did too.

By 1887, the Browns were still among the best outfits in base ball, finishing another championship season in the American Association. Chicago remained a power in the National League. Though the leagues stood apart, the rivalry didn’t fade. If anything, it deepened — fed by pride, by geography, and by the steady movement of players and stories between the two cities.

Now when the Browns moved into the National League in 1892, the rivalry changed shape.

No longer was it a question of leagues.

Now they stood face to face in the same circuit.

But truth be told, St. Louis struggled in those early National League years. The club that had once dominated the American Association found itself trying to keep pace in a tougher, more established league. Chicago, meanwhile, remained a steady and competitive force.

The rivalry didn’t disappear — but it leaned Chicago’s way for a time.

Still, base ball has a way of circling back.

By the early 20th century, the St. Louis club — now beginning to be known as the Cardinals — started to regain footing. Not dominance yet, but respectability. And with that came a renewed edge whenever Chicago came to town.

Now you can’t speak of a rivalry without mentioning the men who’ve worn both uniforms, and there have been a few before 1925 that carried pieces of each club with them. Ballplayers in this era don’t stay rooted the way folks might think. Contracts move, trades are made, and a man might find himself in Chicago one season and St. Louis the next.

Each one of those players carries knowledge — how the other club plays, how they think, where they’re strong and where they might bend. That only sharpens things when the clubs meet again.

Come 1925, you could feel something shifting again in this rivalry.

The Cardinals, under Rogers Hornsby’s hand on the field and Branch Rickey’s steady guidance behind it, were no longer just trying to keep up. They were pushing forward. Competing. Standing their ground against clubs like Chicago that had long held the upper hand.

The games between St. Louis and Chicago last season carried weight — not just in the standings, but in tone. Hard play. Tight contests. The kind of baseball that reminds you these two cities don’t take kindly to being second best to one another.

And now here we are in 1926.

There’s new blood in the mix — Vic Keen among them — brought in to strengthen the pitching staff and give the Cardinals another arm to lean on when these contests tighten up. Moves like that matter in a rivalry. One strong pitcher can change the feel of a whole series.

But more than any one player, it’s the history that walks onto the field with them.

Every meeting carries the memory of 1885… of 1886… of years where one club stood taller than the other and made sure it was known.

And so when the Cardinals and Chicago take the field this spring — April 1st, a 4–4 tie called before a winner could be settled — it fits the story just about right.

No decision.

No easy answer.

Just another chapter in a rivalry that’s been running near half a century now.

And if I know this game the way I think I do…

it won’t be settled clean this year either.

— Wisconsin Willie Collins

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