Cardinals, Tigers meet in World Series for third time

~ The franchises split their previous meetings in 1934 and 1968.

NEW YORK -- Every thirtysomething years, the St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers wind up playing each other in the World Series.

If the last two meetings were any indication, this matchup could be a doozy.

The Cardinals and Tigers, two of the most traditional franchises in baseball history, split a pair of seven-game classics decades ago. St. Louis' Gas House Gang got the best of Detroit in 1934, and Mickey Lolich pitched the Tigers to a comeback victory against Bob Gibson in 1968.

This time, Albert Pujols, Chris Carpenter, Kenny Rogers and Ivan Rodriguez will be some of the big names involved when the 2006 World Series begins tonight at Comerica Park in Detroit.

And the two intense managers, Tony La Russa of St. Louis and Detroit's Jim Leyland, are old friends. Leyland spent five years scouting and working for La Russa and the Cardinals before returning to the bench this season.

"I never had a finer boss," Leyland said recently.

Either La Russa or Leyland will join Sparky Anderson as the only manager to win the World Series in both leagues. La Russa did it with the Oakland A's and Leyland with the Florida Marlins; Anderson did it with Cincinnati and Detroit.

Coming off a draining Game 7 win at New York in the NL Championship Series, the Cardinals pulled into their suburban Detroit hotel at 5 a.m. Friday. By late afternoon, they straggled onto the field at Comerica Park for a workout.

"Maybe that champagne is still stinging their eyes," Tigers reliever Jason Grilli said.

Some of these Tigers were a bit tired, too, after staying up until nearly midnight to see St. Louis beat the Mets 3-1 night for the NL pennant.

"It was one of the few times in my life where I watched another game with two other teams playing that my heart was racing, and that's not really normal for me," Leyland said.

"I thought that was one of the best baseball games I've seen in a long, long time," he said.

Leyland told La Russa so, calling his good friend early Friday to congratulate him. They regularly phone each other, but intend to slack off for the next 10 days or so.

Besides, there's work to do. And for the Tigers, that's a welcome change after spending a week waiting to play.

The AL champions and their stable of power arms will be coming off a week of rest. The Cardinals, on the other hand, needed the full seven games to beat the New York Mets in the NL championship series.

"I don't think it means anything this time of year, whether we got more rest than they do," Leyland said. "This time of year, all teams go on adrenaline. That's not going to have any bearing on anything."

Maybe, but the stats show otherwise.

October fact: The last six teams that began the World Series with five or more days of rest all went on to win. Further, only twice in history have Series teams with such a long break not won -- and both were led by Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

"I think the game is so mental," La Russa said. "If you sit around and you're mentally strong, you're ready."

Back in June, the Tigers swept three games from St. Louis in Detroit during interleague play, part of an eight-game losing streak for the Cardinals.

After stunning the New York Yankees in the first round of the playoffs, the Tigers completed a four-game sweep of Oakland in the ALCS last Saturday, making it five straight years that a wild-card team has reached the World Series.

Justin Verlander, Joel Zumaya and the rest of a Detroit pitching staff that led the majors in ERA (3.84) will face a Cardinals lineup anchored by Pujols, the reigning NL MVP.

St. Louis appeared to be fading when it backed into the NL Central title on the final day of the regular season, but the Cardinals bounced back to beat San Diego in four games in the first round.

Then they got past the favored Mets in the NLCS, winning 3-1 Thursday night in New York behind Yadier Molina's tiebreaking homer and another Game 7 gem by Jeff Suppan.

That gave the Cards their second pennant in three years and 17th overall. Yet they're still searching for their first World Series championship since 1982.

Detroit won it all in '84, then became the losingest team in baseball over the past 13 seasons. The low point came in 2003, when the Tigers lost an AL-record 119 games.

But this season, the surprising Tigers captured their eighth pennant. And they have won seven straight games since losing their postseason opener to the Yankees.

The first World Series between St. Louis and Detroit was 72 years ago, and no two franchises have met twice in the Series over such a long span while representing the same cities. The Athletics and Giants had an 84-year span (1905-1989), but both teams moved during that time.