I hate to say it, but the St. Louis Cardinals wanted it more. Going back to August, I don’t know if you could have found a redbirds fan that believed their team would make a run in the playoffs, let alone win the World Series.

Going back to the end of the regular season, the Cardinals were 10.5 games behind the Atlanta Braves. Both teams were fighting to secure a wild-card spot in the playoffs.

The Cards clinched that spot on the last day of regular season, as the Braves choked and gave up a one run lead and lost in extra innings.

I’ll admit it, when the Braves got knocked out of the playoffs I jumped on the Texas Rangers bandwagon.

I wanted to see some redemption from that quick five-game World Series to the San Francisco Giants a year ago.

Yeah, that’s not what happened. Apparently the only thing worse than losing one World Series, is returning the following year only to have your dreams dashed again.

As game seven ended, I don’t know who I felt worse for between hall of fame pitcher Nolan Ryan, or manager Ron Washington, because both sullen faces summed up everyone’s emotion… heartbroken.

They say there always has to be a winner and a loser, but try explaining that to a team that did everything they could to erase the memory of last year’s loss.

You can’t be any prouder of Texas for making it back, but now that it’s over they will have to pick themselves up once again.

Next year will be a gut check for the Rangers just to prove to everyone they can be champions.