CLEVELAND • You can take the Cardinals out of the playoffs, but you can’t take their fans' disdain for the Cubs out of St. Louis.
The St. Louis-Chicago rivalry is a passionate one regardless of the sport, whether in Major League Baseball or the National Hockey League. And if St. Louis ever gets an Major League Soccer team one day, you can bet folks in the Gateway to the West will learn to hate the Chicago Fire as well.
For now, the hatred is reserved for the Cubs and Blackhawks.
Blues fans hate the Blackhawks, and the feeling is mutual. Cardinals fans haven’t had to worry about the Cubs much throughout their glorious history, so it was easy to ignore the Lovable Losers until the 2015 Division Series.
When you have 11 World Series titles, including two over the last decade, it’s easy to dismiss the Lovable Losers who haven’t won a World Series title since 1908.
Yet, the 2016 Cubs that ran away with the National League Central title with the best record in baseball are dominant enough to foment the hatred among Cardinals fans.
So when you get a large group of St. Louisans together, you can bet your toasted ravioli and gooey butter cake that most of them will pull loudly against the Cubs.
That much was evident Saturday night at Scottrade Center during the Blues’ game against the Kings.
The crowd of 18,631 erupted Saturday night when the jumbotron showed a replay of the Cleveland Indians scoring their third run to take a 3-1 lead in the third inning against the Cubs in Game 4 of the World Series at Wrigley Field.
The Blues’ fans celebrated as the Indians took control for an eventual 7-2 victory that put Cleveland within a victory of the World Series title.
That roar was arguably the third loudest ovation of the night, trailing only the reaction from the crowd when Blues legend Bob Plager was shown on the jumbotron in honor of his pending sweater number retirement and the raucous celebration after Jaden Schwartz scored the winning goal in the third period.
The Cubs staved off elimination by winning Game 5 on Sunday at Wrigley Field, so St. Louisans must still wait to celebrate their demise. Now the Indians will try to claim their first title since 1948 on Tuesday night at Progressive Field or, if necessary, in a winner-take-all Game 7 Wednesday night.
You don’t have to be at Scottrade Center of Busch Stadium to know which team St. Louisans want to win the World Series.