As usual, Cardinals just won't go away

Tonight's Cubs-Cardinals game is big.

It shouldn't be. St. Louis should be suffocating by now as if Wrigley Field's air quality were worse than Beijing's.

But if the Cardinals win today, they'll be within five games of the first-place Cubs and have 43 left to make up the difference.

That's called a pennant race.

The Cubs looked like a certainty Saturday to make life even more difficult for the Cardinals.

Carlos Zambrano, a true pitching ace, started for the Cubs. Todd Wellemeyer, a true journeyman, started for the Cardinals.

A Cubs victory would push the Cardinals eight games behind. Another Cubs' victory today could have pushed the Cards a daunting nine games behind.

Instead, Wellemeyer outpitched Zambrano, the Cardinals won 12-3 and they remain at least a nuisance and possibly more.

No wonder Cubs fans dislike the Cardinals so much. Forever, it seems, the only way the Cubs can pull away from the Cards is by disorienting them, shoving them into a boxcar and dispatching them out west somewhere on a rail.

"They've got a nice little ballclub," Cubs manager Lou Piniella said after the Cardinals whacked his team.

Yes, the Cards' lineup probably is better than given credit for, but it isn't better than the Cubs'. Yes, the pitching staff will get better as it gets healthy, but it won't be as good as the Cubs'.

Yet here the Cardinals are, threatening to stick their chests out at the Cubs again.

As consistently bad as the Cubs have been for more than a half-century, that's how consistently good the Cardinals have been.

Consider this: Since the last time the Cubs played in a World Series in 1945, the Cardinals have played in nine.

Not only that, but St. Louis won five world championships in that time under five different managers - Eddie Dyer (1946), Johnny Keane (1964), Red Schoendienst (1967), Whitey Herzog (1982) and Tony La Russa (2006).

Even when the Cubs were on their way to a 2007 division title and the Cardinals' clubhouse was a hospital ward, the Cards didn't fade until after trailing by just a game entering September.

When the Cardinals aren't great, they still aren't all that bad for all that long. Last year I asked La Russa why. He declined to try explaining the inexplicable.

Just like any other major-league franchise, the Cardinals change players, managers, general managers and even ownership.

What doesn't change is St. Louis' ability to range between respectable and title contender.

Perhaps that's why this rivalry is so intense for Cub fans: Jealousy, envy, or maybe misery loves company the Cardinals just won't provide the longtime lovable losers.

La Russa says of the 2008 Cubs, "It's a good team. Everything they're doing is legitimate. It's a very solid club - well-balanced except for the manager."

That was a joke, folks. La Russa and Piniella have been friends since childhood in Tampa.

But La Russa wasn't joking about the Cubs, who are good on most days and great on some others. You know, just as the Cards are good in most years and great in some others.

So maybe it shouldn't be a surprise that tonight's Cubs-Cards game is big even if it shouldn't be.

mimrem@dailyherald.com