Cardinals fan tries to claim 1985 championship on Wikipedia

The St. Louis Cardinals are a proud franchise, and for good reason. According to Wikipedia, the Cardinals are “[o]ne of the most successful franchises in baseball history, the Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, the second-most in Major League Baseball and most in the National League.” This is accurate. The Cardinals won championships in 1926, 1931, 1934, 1942, 1944, 1946, 1964, 1967, 1982, 2006, and 2011. Yes, most of their championships were when there were just 16 teams in baseball and no playoffs, but that is still an impressive accomplishment.

But there is one championship that still haunts Cardinals fans, the one that escaped them in 1985. They held a 3-1 series lead on the cross-state rival Royals, only to drop Game 5. They appeared to have Game 6 in the bag, but allowed a controversial “safe” call by umpire Don Denkinger rattle them, as Jack Clark dropped an easy foul pop up, Darrell Porter allowed a passed ball, and Todd Worrell allowed a single to light-hitting Dane Iorg to win the game. The Cardinals were still fuming in Game 7, losing their focus in an 11-0 blowout to give Kansas City its first championship.

The 1985 championship trophy sits in the Royals Hall of Fame at Kauffman Stadium. But one Cardinals fan wanted to imagine that his team won it that year. Royals fan Michael Smith noticed this on Cardinals’ Wikipedia page a few weeks ago, which I have screenshotted for posterity.

Okay.

Haha, no.

It looks like the Wikipedia page has already been edited to erase the fictitious St. Louis championship, but give the fan an “A” for bitterness.

Was it an honest mistake? Perhaps. Although if you look at the Internet Archive, earlier in July, the championships were reflected correctly. So someone proactively edited the page to add the 1985 championship since then, and it looks like it was this edit on July 21, from an IP address in East Alton, Illinois, just outside of St. Louis. Nice try, but Jorge Orta was safe.

If you don’t want to believe fake news, here is what really happened: