1934 St. Louis Cardinals

 Not every world champion in a franchise is a timeless collection of men. Yankees fans would be forgiven if they can't recite every last championship season, but 1927, 1998, 1961 and the 1949-53 runs all tend to come to mind quickly. 1937, however, tends to fall down the list of titles the fans can recite. This only applies to teams with MANY titles, like the NBA Celtics and NHL Canadians. The Texas Rangers might not win again for 50 years, so 2023 will stand out for a long time.

The Cardinals have a similar problem to the Yankees. They have the 2nd most titles in baseball, at a very distant 11. Die hard fans can recite all 11 years, but the casual fan may scratch their head for some of the more obscure teams. The 1934 Cardinals happen to belong in the group easier to recall. They were the Gas House Gang. Just like Murderer's Row or the Big Red Machine, when teams had to square up against the Gas House Gang, there was a pretty good chance they were gonna get run over. They played hard, dirty, and in unrelenting fashion. The team philosophy of doing whatever it takes to win could be best summed up by their Shortstop (and a future HoF manager) Leo Durocher, as he titled the first chapter of his baseball autobiography (Nice Guys Finish Last) as "I come to kill you". The Gas House Gang came for blood. Grit like that is hard for a number crunching game like Showdown to best represent, but I imagine that the Cardinals that year played with a wealth of violent strategy cards.

The '34 Cardinals went 95-58-1 (yes, they had to kiss their sisters once that year) and barely beat out the New York Giants for the NL flag by 2 games after storming back in the 11th hour. In the World Series, they split the first 6 games with Detroit before outright embarrassing the lowly Tigers in Game 7. The Dean brothers, as they did for most of the regular season, did the majority of winning in the series.

Game 7 was such a lopsided joke (11-0) that the Detroit home fans were ready to riot and kill the Cardinals by the end. Joe Medwick had gotten into a bit of a scuffle and the fans were so livid, that Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis ordered Manager Frankie Frisch to take his player out of the game, technically making it the only time the Commissioner of Baseball ejected a player from a game (not an official ejection, since that would come with a fine, and Landis just wanted to protect Medwick from the sore-loser Detroit fans.) Medwick and Frisch were NOT happy about it and were ready to fight the entire Tigers roster before making a lineup change. The entire team would fight anyone, so they wouldn't have had a problem with pausing the game to fist fight the entire city of Detroit before going back to finishing off their championship victory.

Player/manager Frankie Frisch was the leader of this disheveled bunch. The former MVP and future hall of famer still had a few more seasons as a player in him. 1934 would be his only championship season as a manager (he won 3 other titles as a player).

The rest of the regular fielders. Durocher may not have a very appealing card, but know that (1) middle infielders back then all sucked, and (2) the man was the pit bull of the team. Ready to throw down at any time, which is invaluable when he's in the middle of the defensive situation.
Future hall of famer Joe Medwick has been known by another name that we've pointed out here before.
Martin, Frisch and Medwick (as well as Dizzy Dean at Pitcher) were the all stars. Ripper Collins was a notable snub despite being a huge offensive threat and leading the league with 35 dingers. Pepper Martin, meanwhile, led the NL in stolen bases.

Not a very deep bench, mostly rookies getting their feet wet. Bill DeLancey was more of a platoon option at Catcher along with Virgil Davis. He had great pop and a promising career ahead of him before tuberculosis put a premature end to baseball.

The starters, led by Dizzy Dean who could do it all, even the run bases, because he insisted on doing it all. He lobbied for his rookie brother to get a shot in '34 and the decision to include both Dean brothers turned out to be a wise one.

And the collection of arms that would appear from the bullpen that season. 1934 was also the last year an official legal spitball was allowed, as Grimes was in his final season that began in St. Louis before we was released off to both New York and Pittsburgh.