The St. Louis Cardinals, a professional baseball franchise based in St. Louis, Missouri, compete in the National League (NL) of Major League Baseball (MLB). Before joining the NL in 1892, they were also a charter member of the American Association (AA) from 1882 to 1891. Although St. Louis has been the Cardinals' home city for the franchise's entire existence, they were also known as the Brown Stockings, Browns, and Perfectos.
In 134 seasons, the franchise has won more than 10,000 regular season games and appeared in 27 postseasons while claiming 12 interleague championships and 23 league pennants. Eleven of the interleague championships are World Series titles won under the modern format since 1903; 19 of the league pennants are NL pennants, and the other four are AA pennants.[1] Their 11 World Series titles represent the most in the NL and are second in MLB only to the New York Yankees' 27.
The first major award MLB presented for team performance occurred with the World Series champions in 1903, and for individual performance, in 1911 in the American League with the Chalmers Award. The first major award that the National League presented for individual performance was the League Award in 1924, the predecessor of the modern Most Valuable Player Award (MVP). Rogers Hornsby earned the League Award in 1925 making him the first winner of an MVP or its equivalent in franchise history. The following season, the Cardinals won their first modern World Series. They won the first World Series Trophy,[2] following their 1967 World Series title,[3] which, before that year, the World Series champion had never received any kind of official trophy.[4]