The All-Time Cardinals Bracket: The Final Four

College basketball fans—y’all remember in 2008 when all of the #1 seeds made the Final Four, ruining your edgy “no, no, Texas is going to make the Final Four!” pick and rendering the guy who doesn’t even care enough about college basketball to pick based on mascots the prohibitive favorite to win your (recreational only!) pool? Well, that happened here.

But this is going to make for an awesome Final Four. The championship game that year was classic, until Memphis’s Derrick Rose hit a clutch free throw to seal the title for the Tigers. They later forfeited that title and thus the winner of the tournament was, um, nobody. This is exactly what happened and nothing you can tell me will change my mind.

Anyway, here’s how the regional finals went. And then you can vote in the loaded Final Four. Can recency eek out the mild upset in the first matchup? Can Bob Gibson’s dominant victories thusfar sustain against arguably the greatest second baseman in Major League history? Voting concludes at 7 p.m. Central Wednesday. And, I’m sure this will shock you, but a champion will be crowned before Opening Day, which sources indicate is a week from today.

Sportsman’s Park regional final

#1 Stan Musial over #2 Ted Simmons, 97.6%

Busch Stadium regional final

#1 Albert Pujols over #2 Ozzie Smith, 61.9%

Robison Field regional final

#1 Rogers Hornsby over #3 Lou Brock, 64.4%

Busch Memorial Stadium regional final

#1 Bob Gibson over #3 Dizzy Dean, 98%

And here’s the ballot. I hope everybody else is as curious as I am to see just how this unfolds.