ST. LOUIS --  The horns were honking on the streets of St. Louis last night. At least they were around Busch Stadium. If you didn’t know any better you’d have thought the Maple Leafs had won a playoff game, er, had actually participated in a playoff game. In some cities, just being there is good enough, it seems.

The Busch Stadium crowd stood and celebrated at their seats for about 10 minutes after Thursday night’s 5-4 victory over the Detroit Tigers. The Cardinals had been down 3-0, took a 4-3 lead in the seventh and won it in the eighth after Detroit tied  it.  It was the best game of this year’s series with some accidents (Curtis Granderson’s slip on the wet grass in centre field) and mistakes (Fernando Rodney’s throwing error ona bunt) to earn a spot in World Series lore.

The Cardinals haven’t had a World Series winner since 1982 when Bud Selig’s might Milwaukee Brewers, Harvey’s Wallbangers, took a 3-2 lead in games to old Busch Stadium.

The Cardinals won the sixth game 13-1 on a nasty night that was delayed twice by rain, for 26 minutes the first time and 2 hours 13 minutes the second time. Don Sutton took the loss and John Stuper pitched a complete game for the victory.

The Cardinals also won the seventh game 6-3 with Joaquin Andujar winning and Bruce Sutter saving.

Since then, the Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead in games in 1985 to the Kansas City Royals, partly because of a wrong umpire’s call that turned the sixth game.

They also blew a 3-1 lead in games in 1968 and that is getting some play since that also was against the Tigers. Mickey Lolich pitched the victory in Detroit in the Tigers 5-3 victory. The Series moved to St. Louis where Denny McLain was the winning pitcher in a 13-1 game and Lolich came back on two (2) days’ rest to defeat Bob Gibson 4-1 in the seventh game.