The Chicago Cubs and the St. Louis Cardinals have been rivals from the start. They first played each other in 1885. Yes, Cubs fans, that’s longer than you’ve been waiting for a World Series. They played to a draw in an annual exhibition game as the American Association victors, the St. Louis Brown Stockings, and the National League pennant winners, the Chicago White Stockings. Each team won their league titles again the next year and met for the second time in the game that was the precursor to the World Series. This time, St. Louis won. Chicago still hasn’t forgiven them.

Within the first several years of its existence, the American Association folded and the St. Louis Browns joined the National League. Both the Chicago team and the St. Louis team changed their names. But the rivalry continued through those early changes and only intensified as time went on. For the first part of the twentieth century, they were the western-most cities with professional baseball teams. So each team attracted a following, not only from its own city but also from large parts of the country. Much of the northern Midwest came to love the Chicago Cubs. Much of the South came to adore the St. Louis Cardinals.

Downstate Illinois was mixed in its affections, especially as radio grew. KMOX broadcast Cardinals games out of St. Louis while WGN broadcast Cubs games from Chicago. Downstate Illinois, and much of the surrounding area, received both radio stations and could choose a favorite team. The renowned Harry Carey broadcast St. Louis Cardinals games for more than twenty years for KMOX before moving to Chicago to work for WGN where he became the legendary voice of the Chicago Cubs from 1981 until his death before the 1998 season.

On paper, the St. Louis Cardinals have had a more successful team. Of course, that’s not hard, considering the drought that the Cubs have been through. The Chicago Cubs, of course, have not played in the World Series since 1945. And the last time they won a World Series? 1908. A full century. One hundred years. The Cardinals don’t come near to matching that losing record. And now that the Boston Red Sox and the Chicago White Sox have not only played in but won World Series in the last few years, no other team in baseball comes close to that record.

In fact, the St. Louis Cardinals have a very respectable record when it comes to World Series play. They have won the World Series ten times, in 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982 and 2006. They have won the National League pennant and played in the World Series seven more times than that, in 1928, 1930, 1943, 1968, 1985, 1987 and 2004.

But baseball fans, like other people, don’t always read the stats before they choose whom to love. The guys in the Chicago jerseys have a very loyal following that doesn’t seem jeopardized by the team’s failure to win. Cubs fans enjoy a certain one-upsmanship when it comes to disappointment. “My team broke my heart again this year,” they seem to say. “That’s way more than your team has ever broken yours.” Sure, Cardinals fans are loyal, too. But they don’t have to work so hard at it. As of 2008, a 30-year Cards fan has cheered her team through five World Series and seen them win two of them. A 30-year Cubs fan has had her heart broken 30 times.

Fans from both cities travel to the other place to see and root for their team. There is a sense of excitement at the ballpark when the rivals play each other. It is not rare for people, Cubs fans and Cards fans alike, who grew up in rural areas or smaller towns in the lower Midwest to move to Chicago for their education or for work, and some of them bring their love for their own team with them. So Chicago is home to many St. Louis Cardinals fans.

And there are other stats that suggest that the St. Louis Cardinals are the better deal. When Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire went nose-to-nose in their home run rivalry in 1998, the Cubs’ Sosa finished the season with 66. The Cardinals’ McGwire hit 70. Now, 66 is a remarkable number of home runs in a season. But in the context of the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry, the Cardinals got the best of it.

Moreover, the Chicago Cubs as a team have been a home to a number of former or future St. Louis Cardinals players. This season, Jim Edmonds, a former star with the St. Louis Cardinals, joined the Chicago Cubs. Edmonds had played seven years with the California Angels before being traded to the Cards, where he played for eight years. Over that period of time, he was selected for the All-Star team four times and won the Gold Glove Award eight times and Silver Slugger Award once. Then Edmonds was traded to the San Diego Padres and released by them. The Cubs signed him immediately.

When he signed with the Chicago Cubs, the fans knew him well. And greeted him as you might expect Chicago fans to greet the All-Star, Gold-Glove winning Silver Slugger of the rival St. Louis Cardinals. They booed him. They booed a lot. They kept booing him. Then there was the time Edmonds hit two home runs in one inning in the cross-town series between the Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. Cubs fans changed their minds about Edmonds. They decided they kind of liked him.

On the Fourth of July, when the Cubs played in St. Louis for the first time since Edmonds joined the team, the crowd greeted him warmly when he stepped up to the plate, giving him a long ovation in recognition of his excellent career in St. Louis. Then he struck out. The St. Louis crowd cheered again. He was, after all, playing in a Chicago Cubs jersey now.

But Edmonds isn’t the only player to have played for both of the rival teams. Hall of Famers Lou Brock, Rogers Hornsby, Dizzy Dean and Bruce Sutter are all among those who have played both for the Chicago Cubs and for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Lou Brock signed with the Chicago Cubs and made his MLB debut with them in 1961. The Cubs traded him to St. Louis in 1964 for pitcher Ernie Broglio. Once Brock hit St. Louis, he batted .348 for the season and stole 38 bases as the Cards passed the Cubs in the standings and went on to win the National League pennant and then the World Series. Brock played for the St. Louis Cardinals in the Series in 1967 and 1968, too.

Broglio, on the other hand, won a total of seven games for the Chicago Cubs before retiring in 1966.

It has now been a century and a quarter since the St. Louis Brown Stockings and the Chicago White Stockings first met in a post-season exhibition game that ended in a tie. The rivalry isn’t over yet. The Cubs are having another one of those years – one of those years that fans hope will be the year. As of the All-Star break, 2008, the Chicago Cubs have been in first place in the National League Central Division since May. The St. Louis Cardinals have been . . . right behind them, in second place, adding more fuel to the fire of the rivalry.

Will this be the year the Chicago Cubs reverse the Curse of the Billy Goat and play in – or even win – the World Series? Will this be another of many years that the St. Louis Cardinals show the world what they are made of as they win the National League pennant? Or will some other team altogether get the prize? We don’t know yet. Keep watching. The season isn’t over.