ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals are one of baseball’s most storied franchises, and even the most dedicated fans can learn something new about the team on any given day.
That applies well beyond things like World Series titles, stats on the back of baseball cards or observations from a baseball game. Things you might not usually associate with the Cardinals. Things that, for lack of a better non-baseball term, might seem a bit out of left field.
One Chicago-based Twitter user has made it his mission to not only provide odd scoops on his hometown favorite White Sox, but also the Cardinals and every other MLB franchise. Jay Cuda has built a strong platform (38,000 followers) behind baseball figures and facts that seem a bit odd and in some cases useless for your day-to-day functions, but provide humorous or extraordinary information.
Cuda publishes something new or peculiar on a near-daily basis. Below are ten facts you may (or may not) know about the St. Louis Cardinals with help from his research.
The shortest possible distance to a home run at the Cardinals home ballpark (Busch Stadium) is 335 feet to right field.
If MLB managers were re-assigned to teams based on proximity to their hometown, the Cardinals’ manager would be Pirates’ Derek Shelton, from Carbondale, Illinois.
The Cardinals are near the middle of the pack compared to other MLB opponents in terms of their bullpen coach’s height.
The Cardinals are among the tallest and heaviest teams (weight and height of MLB rosters) in all of baseball.
On that same subject, the Cardinals are taller combined than a Boeing 767 from nose to tail, but also heavier combined than the average male adult rhinoceros.
The Cardinals fly to road ballparks with Delta Airlines as the team’s primary plane operator.
Speaking of flying, the Cardinals are one of 12 teams in the major 4 U.S. pro sports leagues named after birds.
The Cardinals record, at one point this year, matched the call numbers for a popular convenience store.
The Cardinals are allowing runs in more innings than they are scoring runs so far in 2023
The Cardinals are nearly three times better at scoring from second base on a single than scoring from first base on a double.
BONUS FACT: The Cardinals don’t have possums in their broadcast booth (What a relief, sorry Oakland A’s fans).
The Cardinals enter Saturday with an 8-12 in the young 2023 season, still in the early stages of a 10-game west coast road trip that runs through Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.