welcome to '08

by lboros on Jan 1, 2008 10:10 AM EST in News Comment 14 comments

years ending in 8 are generally not auspicious for the cardinals. the 8 year was the cards' worst of the 1930s and 1970s (71-80 and 69-93, respectively), and their 2d-worst of the 1900s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1980s. the team has never had its best year of a given decade in the 8 year. their second-worst record of the post-1900 era came in an 8 year (1908); their worst season of the last 80-plus years came in an 8 year (1978). in short, the cardinals generally suck during years ending in 8. among the 10 possible year-ending digits, only one has witnessed an overall losing record for the franchise: 8.

years ending in	won-loss	pct
0	858-851	.502
1	923-722	.561
2	901-806	.528
3	868-843	.507
4	914-769	.543
5	891-821	.520
6	867-862	.501
7	913-816	.528
8	748-796	.484
9	779-770	.503

looking on the bright side, the franchise has a .530 winning percentage in leap years, vs just a .514 percentage in non-leap years (since 1900). and the team has finished first in 7 of the 27 leap years since 1900 (26 percent), vs 14 first-place finishes in the 81 non-leap years (15 percent).

one last factor to consider: the 2000s are currently the cards' second-winningest decade, but they'll need to finish it off with a couple of good years or it'll slide to 3d, possibly to 4th:

decade	won-loss	pct
1940s	960-580	.6234
2000s	736-559	.5683
1930s	869-665	.5665
1960s	884-718	.5518

as long as the cards are no worse than 9 games under .500 over the next two seasons combined (ie, 79 wins a year), they'll conclude the 2000s with a winning percentage higher than .5518, good for 3d place. to maintain the decade's 2d-place standing, the team will have to average 91 wins over the next couple of seasons.

happy new year ev'yone.

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Happy new year

Now go take a day off, sonny.

by sdrone on Jan 1, 2008 10:17 AM EST reply actions 0 recs

happy new year

and here is to 2008 breaking the losing trend! (and take heart- only 91 days to the home opener!)

When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

by RosevilleRedbird on Jan 1, 2008 2:02 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Election years

not to bring politics into play, but I'd be interested to see the Cards record during presidential election years and how it coincides with whether a dem or repub won. Obviously it's meaningless, but it would be a fun read on these boring winter days.

Fame was like a drug, but what was even more like a drug were the drugs

by Alxfritz on Jan 1, 2008 2:04 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

election year records

From 1900 forward, if the Cards win the WS, a Democrat gets elected. All around good stuff, right? If they lose, a republican gets elected. They have been to 5 Series in those years and elected Hoover, FDR(4th term), Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and George Dubya(2nd term). Their Win percentage in the years a Dem gets elected(12 years) averages out to .521 and when a Rep it is .507(15 years). For all years since 1900 the Cards are 4-5 when a Republican is in office in the WS and 6-2 when a Democrat is President. I'll leave it up to someone else to calculate records according to who controls the house and senate.

by crosseyedpirate on Jan 2, 2008 10:51 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Man

I did that research and was going to use it in a blog post tomorrow. Now to find a better twist on it.

C70 at the Bat

by Cardinal70 on Jan 2, 2008 11:42 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

'68 was great, but Flood did not fall down

They were shading Northrup to hit to right center. This video shows that he lost maybe 2 steps on the way to the ball. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_MLq87XTQ0 I think at best he had a chance to dive for it like Jimmy in 2004 Game 7. Northrup's triple was legitimate. Even Mike Shannon said during the '06 World Series that Flood did not have a shot at catching that ball. Ironically, Granderson stumbled in center field at a critical moment as well. Flood's ghost was lurking in the outfield that night.

Beware the odd numbered decade. The Cards have three seasons to get to the Series again (if you count 2010 as the current decade, as I do). After that, we may have to wait. Only two of our 10 titles have come in an odd numbered decade.

by BeanedByGibson on Jan 2, 2008 10:02 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

The year ends in "8"

The manager is in his 13TH SEASON! Yikes!

by jillsinmo on Jan 1, 2008 2:27 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

I "ate" a cardinal last night?

Don't remember that.
OH '08
Sorry still out of it from last night.
Huh wonder where the red feathers came from?

by That's a Winner on Jan 1, 2008 2:45 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

Yeah but 1968

was a pretty damn good year, if, ya know...Brock had slid or Curt hadn't fallen down.

I will be boxer briefs

by Hardcore Legend on Jan 1, 2008 3:55 PM EST reply actions 0 recs

gibson

it seems very strange to think that gibby's great year was 40 years ago

or the fact that the great musial season was 60 years ago

maybe that is what we may see this year whether the team is great or not; an awesome individual season, and from who else, but albert

i think albert is going to be so pissed off about the false mitchell report, that he is going to have one hell of a season

did anyone else notice that the guy who ran fox-2 news, and allowed that story to run, is now going to philly? he says this has nothing to do with the pujols thing, but you have to wonder

Pujols is the greatest Cardinal in my lifetime.

by bigcardsfan5 on Jan 1, 2008 7:00 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

In the TV news biz,

going from STL to Philly is a promotion, so it didn't hurt his career any. (Though I'll take the Lou over Philly any day of the week, by far.)

by MdRedbirdFreak on Jan 1, 2008 11:18 PM EST up reply actions 0 recs

yes

he did go from the stl which is the 21st market to philly which is 4th, but it just seems awfully coincidental to me

another thing i just saw recently was that story on fox-2 named daryl kile as well, and he too was a false name

i guess i am just pissed that the guy couldnt wait a few hours and just had to get what he thought was a scoop, only to be very wrong

Pujols is the greatest Cardinal in my lifetime.

by bigcardsfan5 on Jan 2, 2008 4:54 AM EST up reply actions 0 recs

Top 10 Players to watch

Here is my own personal Top 10 Players to watch in 08 list:

10: Boggs, he could come from "nowhere" and make a big impact or he could just have a great season at AAA and put himself on the radar for 09
09:Perez, a lot has been put on his shoulders, will he make the ML club and if he does how will he handle it
08:Kinney, was his 06 season his norm or will he regress, if he does regress is it the injury or something else
07:Ankiel, is he for real and could he have a massive season
06:Mulder, Can he recover from another surgery or is his career over
05:Carpenter, will he come back at all much less Ace like this year
04:Rolen, he needs to recover and what he does could change how the offense looks
03:Pujols, is he declining or was last year just a slow one by his standards, I smell a massive April outburst but what will follow is unknown
02:Wainwright, will he continue his current success, will he be the Ace we had last year, will he be better or will he regress
01:Rasmus, what will he do, will he break out will he even make it to the ML team or will he skip AAA lots to watch here

by StLHugo on Jan 2, 2008 8:59 AM EST reply actions 0 recs