At the start of the post-season, before any one-game Wild Card playoffs, I wrote a post about my rooting interests. I even provided visual representation. Here was the American League, from favorite (left) to least (right):

I'm mostly rooting for the underdogs, the starving fans. The Royals hadn't been in the post-season since 1985, the Orioles hadn't been to the World Series since 1983, so 1 and 2. Sure, the Tigers have had a good run in recent years but they hadn't won it all, and it's Detroit. If I'd been consistent, I probably would've gone A's before Tigers, but ... hobgoblins. No surprise that my bottom-rungers are AL West teams: the rivals of my Mariners.

In the NL, similar rationale:

Pirates hadn't been to the World Series since '79, Nationals had never been, and Dodgers, despite a good record this century, hadn't been since way back in '88 (the Kirk Gibson series). Giants? They went in 2010 and '12, winning both. Cards? They went in 2004, 2006, 2011 and last year. They won the middle ones. So no contest there. Of the 10 total teams, I was rooting for anyone but the Cards and the Giants. 

What happens? Here's the AL results:

Not bad! Good for me, good for baseball. There, we're guaranteed a team that hasn't won the pennant since at least '85. 

The National League was a different story:

You just want to say, “Really? These guys? Again? Can't you do any better?” There, we're guaranteed a team that hasn't won the pennant since ... 2012. Yay.

The Cards are the worst. They've been to the postseason 11 times this century, and have now made the NLCS nine times. That's two more times than the despised New York Yankees have this century. And their closest NL rivals in LCS trips? The Giants, of course, with four. But that's a huge gap. The Cards keep beating the teams I'm rooting for: Dodgers this year, Dodgers last year, Nats in 2012, Brewers in 2011. They're the team that just keeps showing up. They're the team that won't go away.

Now what? Root for the Giants? Crap.

If this continues I might have to add a “Cardinals Suck” category to the blog.