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Cardinals win unlikely World Series title over error-prone Tigers
2006-10-28
Dismissed as a serious contender after a late-season slump, the St. Louis Cardinals completed an amazing playoff run to their first World Series title since 1982 by beating Detroit 4-2. The Cardinals captured their 10th Major League Baseball championship by winning the best-of-seven final four games to one, the National League squad ending its longest title drought since taking its first crown back in 1926. "We shocked the world," Cardinals slugger Jim Edmonds said. "It didn't look so good at certain points this season. I don't think we saw this coming but when you put a group of guys out there who battle, anything can happen. "We just stuck it out and got it done." The Cardinals had the worst regular-season record of any team to win the World Series, fading at the finish to go 83-78 and qualifying for the playoffs only the last day of the season. "It's not what you do in the season. It's what you do in the post-season. We had an up and down season but we are the world champions," St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols said. "Thank God we proved everybody wrong. We never gave up. We were warriors." St. Louis starter Jeff Weaver fired nine strikeouts at his former teammates, scattering four hits and allowing only one earned run over eight innings while the Cardinals took advantage of fielding blunders by the Tigers. Weaver, a 30-year-old US right-hander, spent his first 3 1/2 seasons with the Tigers. "Dream Weaver" was 3-10 when he came to the Cardinals from the Los Angeles Angels in June and pitched the game of his life when it mattered most. "Everything fell into place," Weaver said. "These guys I play around are incredible. I just wanted to make it come true for them." The Cardinals grabbed the lead for good with two runs in the fifth inning largely thanks to a throwing error by Detroit rookie Jason Verlander, the fifth error by a Tiger pitcher in as many games. Yadier Molina and Japan's So Taguchi singled and Weaver followed by hitting the ball to Verlander, whose throw to third base was well wide of the mark and rolled away. Molina raced home on the eighth Tiger error of the Series and Taguchi, who took third on the blunder, scored on David Eckstein's ground out to give St. Louis a 3-2 lead. Eckstein was named the World Series' Most Valuable Player after batting .364 (6-for-9) and driving in four runs in the final two games. "We believed in ourselves. This isn't just mine. It is everybody's. It was a total team effort," Eckstein said. "To accomplish it is unreal, a dream come true." St. Louis added an insurance run in the seventh inning as Scott Rolen stretched his playoff hit streak to 10 games with a two-out single to score Eckstein from second base and produce the final margin. Cardinal closing relief pitcher Adam Wainwright entered in the ninth inning and, despite allowing a one-out double to Sean Casey and a walk to 0-for-17 Series goat Placido Polanco, struck out Brandon Inge to end the Series. That touched off a celebration by players on the field and a crowd of 46,638 in the grandstands. Cardinals manager Tony La Russa became only the second man to guide teams from the American and National leagues to World Series crowns, following former Detroit manager Sparky Anderson. La Russa led Oakland to the 1989 title. "I'm feeling so great for our team. We went through so much. We wanted it so bad," La Russa said. "We had so many players who had never won a ring. I'm just bursting. This is an experience I will never forget. It's the greatest." The Tigers were denied their first World Series title since 1984 after a season in which they snapped a run of 12 years without a winning record, including an American League-record 119 losses in 2003. "We just didn't play good enough," Tigers manager Jim Leyland said. "They just played better than we did. We didn't play good enough to win a World Series. I just hope people remember where we came from." St. Louis pitching overwhelmed the mistake-prone Tigers, whose three leadoff hitters combined for the second-worst average by such a group in World Series history. Detroit became the first team since 1979 to make errors in the first five games of a World Series, but could not take full advantage of two blunders by St. Louis rightfielder Chris Duncan. Casey hit a sixth-inning fly to deep right field that Duncan misplayed. What should have been an out resulted in a double, but Casey was stranded at second. Duncan dropped a Magglio Ordonez fly ball in the fourth and Casey belted the next pitch for his second homer of the Series to put the Tigers ahead 2-1. The Cardinals scored first in the second on an error by Detroit's Inge.
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