Growing up in St. Louis is great. There are lots of sports teams to follow. Most importantly, St. Louis is home of the Cardinals and Blues. St. Louis is Cardinal Nation or better known as Baseball Heaven. With the finishing of the new and improved Busch Stadium in 2006 along with Ballpark Village in 2014, it is hard not to catch the red bird fever. Then we have the action packed Blues, who are just so close to finally winning the Stanley Cup.
Now, I am in college and one of the biggest changes has been being on campus surrounded by over confident Chicago fans. New friends can become new rivals in an instant. The home city pride rules over friendship any day. Over the past 2 semesters at college I have received a various number of comments about being from St. Louis and being a big St. Louis sports team fan. I’ll just list a few: “the Blues suck,” “how many Stanley Cups have the Blues won and how many have the Blackhawks won?” “St. Louis is all luck,” and “you should burn that shirt.” So I have decided to compare the teams.
Blues (1967) | Blackhawks (1926) | |
Division Championships | 9 | 15 |
Playoff Appearances/Years of existence | 39/49 (79.59%) | 61/90 (67.78%) |
Stanley Cups | 0 | 6 |
Cardinals (1892) | Cubs (1876) | |
World Series Titles | 11 | 2 |
NL Pennants | 19 | 16 |
Central Division Titles | 10 | 3 |
Playoff Appearances | 32 | 19 |
Try and argue with the facts now. Yes, the Blues may not have a Stanley Cup title but we have a better ratio of playoff appearances. Yes, the Cubs may have beat us in the playoffs last year but we are 11 time World Series Champs and the Cubs are 2 time champs. Let’s not forget that the Cubs are cursed because of a goat… So please stop asking me why I love to root for St. Louis.
I am not trying to convince Chicago fans that St. Louis is better because that is a personal opinion, I understand. However, I am trying to show the facts to why being a St. Louis fan is great. St. Louis fans acknowledge that Chicago teams aren’t to just be brushed off while Chicago fans feel like St. Louis teams can be. We love the rivalry, it makes winning that much more worth it. I asked my friend, a die-hard Cardinals fan who probably shed tears in last year’s loss to the Cubs in playoffs, and she said, “The one thing that bothers me is that they cannot accept that St. Louis is a talented city sports wise. At least St. Louis fans recognize talent when they see it; even if we do hate the other team.” St. Louis teams are hated by all because they hate seeing us celebrate winning so much.
So I guess what I am trying to say is at least step up your smack talk game. If you are going to insult St. Louis, do it accurately. In the meantime, Let’s Go Blues and Go Cards. We will probably see you in the playoffs.
