The St. Louis Cardinals' 2009 season was the 128th season for the franchise in St. Louis, Missouri and the 118th season in the National League. The Cardinals, coming off an 86-76 season and fourth place in the NL Central, got off to a strong start in April before a team-wide offensive breakdown caused them to fall behind the Cubs in the NL Central standings. Brilliant seasons from starting pitchers Chris Carpenter, Adam Wainwright, and Joel Piñeiro helped St. Louis to stay in contention until the key midseason acquisitions of Matt Holliday, Mark DeRosa, and Julio Lugo revived the Cardinal offense. An August 20–6 effectively ended the NL Central race, and the Cardinals won the division with a 91-71 record, seven-and-a-half games better than the second-place Cubs. However, their playoff run ended quickly when they were swept in three games by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Division Series.

Offseason departures and acquisitions

Hitters

The Cardinals retained the services of backup catcher Jason LaRue, signing him to another one-year contract.

The St. Louis Cardinals 2004 season was the team's 123rd season in St. Louis, Missouri and the 113th season in the National League. The Cardinals went 105-57 during the season, the most of any Cardinals team since 1944, and the first Cardinal team to win 100 or more games since 1985, and won the National League Central division by 13 games over the NL Wild-Card Champion Houston Astros. In the playoffs the Cardinals defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers 3 games to 1 in the NLDS and the Astros 4 games to 3 in the NLCS to reach their first World Series since 1987. In the World Series the Cardinals faced the Boston Red Sox and were swept 4 games to 0. It was the final World Series played at Busch Memorial Stadium. Because the American League had home-field advantage as a result of winning the All-Star Game, Busch Memorial Stadium was where the Curse of the Bambino died.

Catcher Mike Matheny, third baseman Scott Rolen, and outfielder Jim Edmonds won Gold Gloves this year.

The 1946 World Series was played in October 1946 between the St. Louis Cardinals (representing the National League) and the Boston Red Sox (representing the American League). This was the Red Sox's first appearance in a World Series since their championship of 1918.

In the eighth inning of Game 7, with the score 3–3, the Cardinals' Enos Slaughter opened the inning with a single but two batters failed to advance him. With two outs, Harry Walker walloped a hit over Johnny Pesky's head into left-center field. As Leon Culberson chased it down, Slaughter started his dash. Pesky caught Culberson's throw, turned and—perhaps surprised to see Slaughter headed for the plate—supposedly hesitated just a split second before throwing home. Roy Partee had to take a few steps up the third base line to catch Pesky's toss, but Slaughter was safe without a play at the plate and Walker was credited with an RBI double. The Cardinals won the game and the Series in seven games, giving them their sixth championship.

St. Louis (/seɪnt ˈluːɪs/ or /sənt ˈluːɪs/) is a city and port in the U.S. state of Missouri. The city developed along the western bank of the Mississippi River, which forms Missouri's border with Illinois. In 2010, St. Louis had a population of 319,294; a 2014 estimate put the population at 317,419, making it the 60th-most populous U.S. city and the second-largest city in the state in terms of city proper population. The St. Louis metropolitan area includes the city as well as nearby areas in Missouri and Illinois; with an estimated population of 2,905,893, it is the largest in Missouri and one of the largest in the United States. St. Louis was founded in 1764 by Pierre Laclède and Auguste Chouteau and named after Louis IX of France. Claimed first by the French, who settled mostly east of the Mississippi River, the region in which the city stands was ceded to Spain following France's defeat in the Seven Years' War. Its territory east of the Mississippi was ceded to the Kingdom of Great Britain, the victor. The area of present-day Missouri was part of Spanish Louisiana from 1762 until 1803.

St. Louis (NA), in the standard short-form identification used for American baseball teams generally (which is "Team Name (League)"), would be the standard identification for St. Louis baseball teams in the National Association (NA; full name National Association of Professional Base Ball Players).

There were two such teams, a very short-lived one in 1875 and another which (in the opinion of some sources) was a precursor to the modern St. Louis Cardinals. Because both clubs existed in 1875, and both were members of the National Association, the denotation "St. Louis (NA)" can be ambiguous and is generally avoided, and both contemporary and later records handled this ambiguity in various ways.

One club is now commonly called "Red Stockings" and the other "Brown Stockings" but those names, though used at the time, were not then clearly or definitely established.

St. Louis Red Stockings

The Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center, also known as Gateway Station, is a rail and bus terminal station in downtown St. Louis, Missouri. Opened in 2008 and operating 24 hours a day, it serves Amtrak trains and Greyhound cross-country buses. Missouri's largest rail transportation station, it is located one block east of St. Louis Union Station.

Gateway Station cost $31.4 million to build. and after more than a year of delays, it fully opened November 19, 2008. The station's unique design has won several awards, including 2009 St. Louis Construction News and Real Estate's Regional Excellence Award, 2008 Best New Building by the Riverfront Times, and the 2009 Award of Merit - Illuminating Engineering Society Illumination Awards.

Transportation

Gateway Station serves as a terminal hub for:

Amtrak

Of the 12 Missouri stations served by Amtrak, St. Louis was the busiest in FY2015, seeing an average of 885 passengers daily. The station is served by Amtrak's Missouri River Runner, Lincoln Service, and the Texas Eagle, with all but Texas Eagle originating and terminating at the station.

Saint Louis Athletica was an American professional soccer club that was based in the St. Louis suburb of Fenton, Missouri that participated in Women's Professional Soccer. Athletica started the 2009 season playing its home games at Ralph Korte Stadium, on the campus of SIUE in Edwardsville, Illinois, then moved to Soccer Park in Fenton, Missouri in June. On May 27, 2010, the WPS announced that the Club would fold effective immediately, forcing the league to compete with only 7 teams for the rest of the season.

Athletica was one of three parts of the Athletic Club of St. Louis, chaired by team owner Jeff Cooper, with the others being a large St. Louis youth soccer league network and the men's soccer team AC St. Louis.

History

When the creation of WPS, a new top-flight women's league that would replace/revive the Women's United Soccer Association (WUSA), was announced in 2006, Saint Louis was one of the then-six cities that would have a team.

On August 26, 2008, it was announced that the Saint Louis' head coach would be Jorge Barcellos, the then-head coach of the Brazilian women's team. Team Chairman Jeff Cooper's organization SLSU had plans for a soccer-specific stadium ready, but the construction would not start until St. Louis had been also awarded an MLS franchise.