I am surprised that the Cubs beat us to 10K with only a 6 year head start. They must have been a really good team before the light bulb.

I only count the club’s games that are in the same city. That eliminates several noted clubs. I prefer to think of the Cards having been born in 1899.

So who did the Cubs play against for those first 3 years? Or am i to presume that the Cubbies “play with themselves” back then as they do now? (lol)

The Cubs’ last winning DECADE was the 1930s.

Currently, they’re two games under .500 for the 2000s (starting in 2000 and going through today), so it looks like they just might have a winning decade again. Finally.

By contrast, the Cardinals are 878-683, or 195 games above .500 for this decade.

The Cardinals’ last losing decade was the 1990s, when they were 36 games under .500. You may remember some pretty horrid lineups and rotations back then (hello, Tom Urbani!), but they came within one game of the World Series in 1996, and had the three-division set up been in effect in 1993, they would have won the NL Central.

Stubby…I would imagine they played against teams that no longer exist.

As an historian, I would think that since the Brown Stockings evolved into the Cardinals, the team’s history should begin in 1882. I’d like to ask what the Cardinals think joining the National League has to do with a team’s origins? I believe the American Association went broke and that’s why they joined the National League. A lot of teams have changed leagues, divisions, etc. I’m not well-versed in the history of other teams, but weren’t the Brewers an American League team originally? So, by the Cardinals reasoning the Brewers history wouldn’t begin until they became a National League team? That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me, so I’m curious about the reasoning behind that.

More fun with Baseball-Reference …

The losingest teams in MLB history are the Phillies (10,139), Braves (9,857), Cubs (9,569), Pirates (9,538), Reds (9,519) and then the Cardinals (9,319).

The Cardinals are the fourth-winningest team of all time, behind the Yankees, Giants and Dodgers.

Of the eight original National League teams from 1876, only two are still in business, the Cubs and the Braves. As franchises folded, they were replaced by either new teams or teams that came over from the other Major League of the 1800s, the American Association. The Cardinals, Reds, Pirates and three other teams started the AA in 1882. After the 1882 season, the Troy Trojans and Worcester Ruby Legs folded, making room for the Philadelphia Quakers and New York Gothams, (the Phillies and Giants today). The Brooklyn team joined the AA the following year. The AA lasted ten years and the four core surviving teams from the AA joined the NL. Eight of those teams still survive today. Those eight teams were the only teams in the NL from 1900 until 1962. The Cubs and Giants were the dominant teams of the first half of the 20th century, and would likely still be today if not for Branch Rickey.

To answer LPD’s question: Yes, the Brewers were one of the original eight American League teams. After one year in Milwaukee, they moved to St. Louis and became the Browns. The Browns left for Baltimore in early 1950s. The other seven reams were the Chicago White Sox, Detroit Tigers, Cleveland Blues (Indians), Washington Senators (now the Twins), Philadelphia Athletics, Boston Americans and Baltimore Orioles. After two years in Baltimore, the Orioles became the New York Highlanders. One nickname of the Highlanders was ‘Yanks’ (it was easier to fit into Newspaper headlines) and they subsequently adopted the name ‘Yankees’.

- as far as the beginning of the Cardinals franchise itself, it is very clearly 1882, as that is the actual legal beginning of the “company” (team) that is now the St. Louis Cardinals. Like the previous poster said, changing leagues while under the same legal organization and ownership (like after the 1881 A.A. season) does not change the continuous history of the franchise. The current Milwaukee Brewers is a great example; their history as a franchise stretches back to the 1969 as an A.L. expansion team called the Seattle Pilots; they continued their continuous history while moving to Milwaukee in 1970, and again when they switched to the N.L. in 1998. Therefore, the continuous history of the St. Louis Brown Stockings/Browns (it was shortened)/Perfectos/Cardinals begins in 1882. The Cardinals, for whatever reason, passed up the chance to celebrate their 100 year anniversary in 1982 (what a celebration it would’ve been!), and instead went with the 100 ann. of joining the N.L. in 1992.

- The franchise doesn’t “begin” in 1899, either. Just because the Robison brothers, who bought the franchise from Von Der Ahe after previously owning the Spiders, transfered most of the player contracts from Cleveland, doesn’t mean that the FRANCHISES legally switched. This would be like saying that if a guy owned a McDonalds and a Hardees franchise, and swapped employees one day, that the McDonalds was somehow now a “new” restaurant.

- Bruce, all great points, except its a bit of a stretch to say that the Cubs dominated the first 1/2 of the 20th century in the N.L. They certainly dominated the first 25 years of the N.L. during the 1870’s-1890’s while they were first called the Chicago White Stockings and won several pennants, and continued dominating (along w/ the NY Giants) in the first decade of the 20th century, but by the 1920s/1930s they were only an occasional contender who won the odd pennant or 2 (like in 1932 & 1945). Their biggest era of success continues to this day to be appx. 1876-1908.