Chicago and St. Louis have met before in the postseason. It took six balls to draw a walk, and hitters could request a high or low ball from the pitcher, who was only 50 feet away. It was baseball, but certainly not baseball as we know it.
You will hear a lot about how the division series beginning Friday is the first in the postseason between the Cubs and the Cardinals, longtime rivals. In a way, that’s not true.
While teams called the Cubs and the Cardinals have never previously met in the playoffs, their precursors played two hard-fought series at the dawn of organized baseball.