Sports in St. Louis

The city of St. Louis, Missouri, in the United States is home to a number of professional and collegiate sports teams. The Sporting News rated St. Louis the nation's "Best Sports City" in 2000.^[1]

St. Louis has two major league sports teams. The St. Louis Cardinals, one of the oldest franchises in Major League Baseball (MLB), have won 11 World Series; one played against the old cross-city rival St. Louis Browns in 1944. The Cardinals' 11 titles are second only to the New York Yankees' 27.^[2] The St. Louis Blues of the National Hockey League (NHL) appeared in three Stanley Cup finals from 1968 to 1970, and made 25 consecutive playoff appearances from 1979–80 to 2003–04.^[3]

A view of Busch Stadium from the top of the Gateway Arch

St. Louis also has an extensive history in soccer, contributing at least one participant to each FIFA World Cup contested by the United States men's team. The city is also the birthplace of corkball.

Major league teams

Baseball

The St. Louis Cardinals' Busch Stadium during its first season in 2006.

See footnote^[4]

St. Louis is represented in Major League Baseball by the Cardinals, founded in 1882 and playing in the league since 1892. The team won its first World Series in 1926, winning its 11th and most recent in 2011. The team plays at the 43,795-seat Busch Stadium (the third ground to bear that name), and has a view of the city's Gateway Arch.

The 2009 Major League Baseball All-Star Game between the American League (AL) and the National League (NL)^[5] was held on July 14, 2009, at Busch Stadium.^[6][7] The game was the first All-Star Game held in St. Louis since 1966.^[8]

The St. Louis Browns played in the AL from 1902 to 1953.

Football

The Edward Jones Dome (now known as The Dome at America's Center), former home of the St. Louis Rams from 1995 until 2015.

St. Louis has been the home of four National Football League (NFL) franchises:

The NFL was founded in 1920, and three years later, the league had accepted the St. Louis All-Stars as a franchise for the 1923 NFL season. The team finished 1–4–2 in league play, and a 2–5–2 overall record while finishing fourteenth in the standings. The team's first NFL game was on October 7, 1923 and it ended in a 0-0 tie as they played on the road against the Green Bay Packers. A week later they would finish in another 0-0 tie as the All-Stars hosted their first home game against the Hammond Pros, a traveling team from Hammond, Indiana. St. Louis played their games at Sportsman's Park, a facility that was also for both of the professional baseball teams in the city – the Cardinals and the Browns. The only win would come November 11, 1923 when they defeated the Oorang Indians (from LaRue, Ohio) by a 14–7 final.

The second franchise was the St. Louis Gunners. The Gunners were an independent professional football team based that played the last three games of the 1934 National Football League season, replacing the Cincinnati Reds on the league schedule after the Reds' league membership was suspended. They won their first game against the Pittsburgh Pirates (now Steelers) 6–0, but lost the last two to the Detroit Lions (40–7) and the Green Bay Packers (21–14). Six of the Reds players joined the team for the last two games. The team was headquartered at the St. Louis National Guard Armory, which accounts for its nickname the 'Gunners'.

The third franchise was the St. Louis Cardinals and they played in St. Louis 1960 to 1987. They advanced to the playoffs just three times (1974, 1975 & 1982), never hosting or winning in any appearance. In 1987, the team moved to Phoenix, Arizona and became the Phoenix Cardinals; the team changed its geographic location name to Arizona in 1994. Before moving to St. Louis, the Cardinals were based in Chicago. The Chicago Cardinals played there from their founding in 1920 until their move to Missouri in 1959.

The St. Louis Rams, founded in 1936 in Cleveland, Ohio, won the pre-merger NFL Championship twice, in 1945 and 1951. After playing in Los Angeles from 1946 to 1994, the Rams moved to St. Louis in 1995. The Rams defeated the Tennessee Titans 23–16 to win Super Bowl XXXIV in 1999. The team also appeared in Super Bowl XXXVI in 2001, which they lost 20–17 to the New England Patriots. The team's former home in St. Louis (the Edward Jones Dome) hosted 66,965 spectators. On January 13, 2016, it was announced that NFL owners voted 30–2 to allow Rams ownership to move the team back to Los Angeles for the 2016 season.^[9][10]

Saint Louis University football coach Eddie Cochems developed the first modern passing offense in American football history in 1906. Cochems' star halfback, Bradbury Robinson, threw the first legal forward pass on September 5, 1906, in a 22-0 victory over Carroll College at Waukesha, Wisconsin.

Ice hockey

Scottrade Center

The St. Louis Blues are a professional ice hockey team in St. Louis. They are members of the Central Division of the Western Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The team is named after the famous W. C. Handy song "Saint Louis Blues", and plays in the 19,150-seat Scottrade Center in downtown St. Louis. The franchise was founded in 1967 as one of the expansion teams during the league's original expansion from six to twelve teams. The Blues are the only surviving Expansion Six NHL team that has not won the Stanley Cup.

The first NHL team to call St. Louis its home was the St. Louis Eagles. The franchise moved, from Ottawa, in time for the 1934–35 NHL season. The Ottawa Senators had played in the NHL from 1917–1934. During that time the team had won the Stanley Cup in 1903, 1904, 1905, 1906, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1920, 1921, 1923, and 1927. Following the Cup win in 1927 the team went on a sharp decline and in December 1933 rumors surfaced that the Senators would merge with the equally strapped New York Americans. This information was denied by Ottawa club president Frank Ahearn, who had sought financial help from the league. The team played the full 1933–34 season, transferring one home game to Detroit. Near the end of the season, reports surfaced that the club had entered into a deal with St. Louis "interests" to move the club. The team lost its last home game by a score of 3–2 to the Americans on March 15, 1934, before a crowd of 6,500. The final game of the season was a 2–2 tie with the Maroons at the Montreal Forum on March 18, 1934.

The Eagles would survive only one season, as the team continued to lose money due to high travel costs. At that time, the league only had nine teams, with St. Louis playing in the Canadian Division. The division consisted of two teams in Montreal (the Canadiens and Maroons), one team in Toronto (Toronto) and the New York Americans. The American Division hosted the Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, Chicago Black Hawks and the New York Rangers. The Eagles would finish with a league-worse record of 11-31-6.

Basketball

St. Louis was home to two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, the St. Louis Bombers (1949–50) and the St. Louis Hawks (1955–1968), and also to the American Basketball Association (ABA)'s Spirits of St. Louis (1974–76), before the ABA–NBA merger.

Soccer

Taylor Twellman was the Major League Soccer Golden Boot and MVP in 2005.

St. Louis has long had a reputation as being one of America's soccer hotbeds, and is home to arguably the richest soccer history in the nation, although it does not host a Major League Soccer franchise. The city has a strong tradition of prep and select soccer, which is followed very closely by many area residents. The Saint Louis University men's soccer team has won 10 national championships, appeared in 16 NCAA Final Fours, and consistently ranks among the top-10 Division I soccer teams by attendance.

In 2013, Chelsea and Manchester City played to a sellout crowd of 48,000 at Busch Stadium.^[11] Later that year, on August 10, the Edward Jones Dome hosted a friendly between Real Madrid and Internazionale before 54,184 fans, who set a St. Louis record for attendance for a soccer match.^[11]

Every U.S. team in World Cup history has included at least one St. Louisan on its roster, and 29 St. Louisans have been inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame.^[12] Five St. Louisans, including many from the historically Italian neighborhood of The Hill, played on the U.S. team for the 1950 World Cup, which defeated England 1-0 in one of the most noted upsets in World Cup history. This event was chronicled in the 2005 film The Game of Their Lives (released on DVD as The Miracle Match). Several recent American soccer players are from St. Louis, including Brad Davis, Chris Klein, Pat Noonan, Matt Pickens, Steve Ralston, Mike Sorber, Tim Ream, and Taylor Twellman. Additionally, current Bosnia and Herzegovina player Vedad Ibišević attended high school in the city and played a season for SLU.

St. Louis is the former home of several professional teams, including the St. Louis Stars, which played in St. Louis from 1967–1977 in the North American Soccer League. St. Louis also was the home of the St. Louis Steamers, an indoor soccer team that played in St. Louis from 1979–1988. The Steamers averaged over 17,000 fans during their peak, outdrawing the St. Louis Blues NHL team.^[13] The St. Louis Ambush stole the scene from 1992–2000. Featuring mainly local talent, the team won the 1995 NPSL championship, which was and still is the only professional soccer championship in the history of St. Louis.

Officials attempted to pave the way for a St. Louis-area expansion team based in Collinsville, Illinois, to enter Major League Soccer in 2009; however, MLS awarded the 16th franchise to Philadelphia instead. The Saint Louis Athletica competed in Women's Professional Soccer from 2009 to 2010. Athletica played its home matches on the campus of Southern Illinois University Edwardsville and later moved to Scott Gallagher Soccer Park in west county. The team folded in May 2010 when donors did not continue to fund the team.

The St. Louis Soccer Hall of Fame, established in 1971, is located at the Midwest Soccer Academy and includes a museum with various exhibits.^[14] The first annual dinner was held in 1971.^[14]

St. Louis is represented in the IPL by the St. Louis Ambush in the USL by Saint Louis FC.

Corkball

St. Louis is also one of the few cities with Corkball leagues. Corkball is a "mini-baseball" game featuring a 1.6-oz. ball and bat with a barrel that just 1.5" across. Corkball is St. Louis's classic baseball game. Originally played on the streets and alleys of St. Louis in the early 1900s, the game has leagues around the country, thanks to St. Louis servicemen introducing the game to their buddies during World War II and the Korean War. It has many of the features of baseball, yet can be played in a very small area because there is no base-running.

Individual sports

St. Louis was home to four prominent twentieth-century boxers: Sonny Liston, Henry Armstrong, and brothers Leon and Michael Spinks. The Spinkses are the only brothers to have captured the heavyweight boxing title. Leon's son Cory Spinks has also held a world title.

The Gateway Cross Cup is an international professional competition in cyclo-cross, a combination of mountain bike racing and road bicycle racing.

Gateway International Raceway hosts NHRA Drag Racing and NASCAR racing events 5 miles (8 km) east of the city in Madison, Illinois.

College sports

Saint Louis University (SLU) plays NCAA Division I sports as a member of the Atlantic 10 Conference. SLU dropped football as an intercollegiate sport in 1949, but SLU is best known for its men's basketball and men's soccer programs. SLU men's soccer led the NCAA in average attendance in 1999, 2001, and 2003, drawing over 2,700 fans per match each season.^[15] In 2006, the College Cup was played at Hermann Stadium on the campus of Saint Louis University.

The main campus of Lindenwood University, located in the suburb of St. Charles, also fields a number of sports teams, most of them in the NCAA Division II Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association. Three Lindenwood programs compete as effective Division I members in sports that have no Division II national championship. The women's ice hockey team competes in College Hockey America, the women's gymnastics team competes in the Midwest Independent Conference, and the men's volleyball team plays in the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association. Lindenwood's rugby program, despite having started only in 2011, is one of the top ranked rugby programs in the country.^[16]

Lindenwood also has a sister campus on the Illinois side of the river in Belleville; that school is currently a dual member of the NAIA and USCAA.

In NCAA Division III, the Washington University Bears, representing Washington University in St. Louis, have won 18 national titles in four different sports.

In March 2005, the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis hosted the final two rounds of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship, also known as the Final Four. In April 2009, the Edward Jones Dome hosted the NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship Final Four. The Scottrade Center also hosts the annual "Braggin' Rights" game, a men's college basketball rivalry game between the universities of Illinois and Missouri. St. Louis is roughly equidistant from the two campuses.

The Scottrade Center hosted the 2007 Frozen Four college ice hockey tournament on April 5 and April 7, 2007.

Minor league teams

Notes:

• River City Rascals have two championships: one as the Zanesville Greys and one as River City Rascals.

Former teams

References

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