St Louis Cardinals

The St louis Cardinals are one of the NL of the MLB's most storied franchises. This post will cover the origin story of the team we now know as the Cardinals.

Professional baseball began in the city of St. Louis with a team called the Brown Stockings in the National Association in 1875. The NA folded after the season so the Brown Stockings joined the National League as an inaugural member.  They enjoyed some success in the newly formed organization at leasr for a few years. The NL expelled St. Louis from the league in the fall of 1877 due to a game-fixing scandal and the franchise went bankrupt. Without a league, they continued play as a semi-professional barnstorming team through 1881.

1882 is generally considered to be the first year of existence for the franchise which would later become known as the St. Louis Cardinals. That was the year that Christopher Von der Aha purchased the independent St. Louis franchise and helped found the American Association of Baseball, where his St Louis Browns would play. Yes the Brown Stockings became the Browns after a name shortening excercise was implemented.

The original St. Louis Browns baseball team in 1898 was owned by Chistopher Von der Ahe, a German immiagrant who built his local St. Louis grocery business into an expansive empire that ended up owning the local ballpark and eventually the American Association team that played there, the St. Louis Browns. After a couple of years of poor baseball teams, and a tragic fire, Von der Ahe was forced to sell the team to Frank and Stan Robison.

The Robison's already ownd the Cleveland Spiders baseball franchise but were upset about the poor attendance the team had received in Cleveland. They took the Spiders' roster and then infused it into their newly aquired team the Browns to make a whole new product. 

The Robison brothers changed the team nickname from Browns to the St Louis Perfectos. They ushered in new players to the roster such as legendary pitcher Cy Young along with fellow future Baseball Hall of Fame players Jesse Burkett and Bobby Wallace.

The MLB.com website says; 
"The story goes that St. Louis Republic columnist Willie McHale overheard a fan in the stands that summer call the new uniforms “a lovely shade of cardinal.” McHale began referring to the team as the Cardinals in his columns, and it struck a chord with fans.

By the 1900 season, the nickname had fully caught on -- the St. Louis Post-Dispatch began referring to the club as the Cardinals, and the team officially changed its name from the Perfectos to the Cardinals that year."

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The banner photo is a cropped version of St. Louis Cardinals players in 2018 contributed by Thomson200 to and coutesy of Wikimedia Commons.