Baseball fans are sprinkling the term Cardinals’ Devil Magic, and more commonly Cardinals Devil Magic, across social media. And with good reason. The St. Louis Cardinals just wrapped up an improbable 17-game winning streak and clinched a wild-card spot, despite languishing near .500 for most of an injury-riddled season. A month ago, fans were calling for the removal of the manager and hitting coach. Many turned their attention to 2022. But then the magic kicked in.
What is Cardinals’ Devil Magic?
There are competing definitions for the term. Some feel it started with pitching coach Dave Duncan’s ability to take struggling starters from other teams and turn them into viable options in the Cardinals’ rotation. Jeff Suppan securing the NLCS MVP in 2006 is one of many examples. Others view it as the team’s knack for turning marginal prospects into viable offensive weapons, such as Ryan Ludwick, David Freese, and Matt Carpenter. This definition was reinforced in a blog post from FanGraphs in 2013. But the more common usage of the phrase revolves around the improbable events that lead to the Cardinals’ success. Consider the first appearance of “devil” and “magic” about the Cardinals on Twitter.
The tweet was sent about five minutes before the Cardinals defeated the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 5 of the NLCS. The 2011 Cardinals’ miraculous run is well-documented, but it’s always worth noting that it was one of the most incredible surges to the playoffs in sports history. Before that tweet, Cardinal fans had already adopted the Rally Squirrel as their unofficial mascot during the NLDS. They knocked off the Philadelphia Phillies in that series. The Phillies had won 102 games and their fifth consecutive NL East title in 2011. None of that mattered, of course, to the Cardinals. They refused to lose a series and won their 11th championship after heroics in Game 6 forced an unlikely Game 7. The first instance of the full phrase on Twitter was posted a year later:
CARDINALS DEVIL MAGIC pic.twitter.com/XL0gRwLo
— Lana Berry (@Lana) October 15, 2012
The Cardinals were out to an early lead over the San Francisco Giants. They scored their runs in part because of back-to-back doubles by Daniel Descalso and Pete Kozma. They weren’t the sluggers the Cardinals were counting on to drive the offense, but it was working. The Giants would win the series in seven games. But at that moment, it looked like the Cardinals were up to their old tricks.
Is the Devil Magic Real?
Baseball history is wrought with superstition. Players and fans frequently invoke the supernatural, from the Curse of the Bambino to the Curse of the Billy Goat to lucky hats and underwear. It’s plausible that a player like Allen Craig could develop into a star, but something otherworldly seemed to be happening in 2013 when he hit .454 with runners in scoring position. Every October has its fair share of surprises, but a home run from Shane Robinson seemed unlikely. No one picked David Eckstein to be the World Series MVP in 2006. And then you have the surprising moments that aren’t about a player overperforming. No one should forget the infield fly call against the Atlanta Braves in 2012. The (correct) obstruction call awarded the Cardinals the winning run in Game 5 of the 2013 World Series. The list goes on and on.
Conversely, it could be that fans of other teams would instead attribute the Cardinals’ success to the supernatural than accept that they are a winning franchise. Perhaps it’s easy to ignore the poor performances of great players and the bad breaks they’ve had along the way. If the magic is real, it seems the Cardinals would have a few more championships over the last couple of decades. Or maybe that’s just the magic trying to convince us it’s not real.
If It’s Real, What Is It?
There are several fan theories out there. Some believe that the baseball gods are repaying the franchise for the missed call by Don Denkinger during Game 6 of the 1985 World Series. This is unlikely as it seems the 1987 team would have won the World Series over the Minnesota Twins. But it was in 2006, a full 19 years after Denkinger blew the call at first base, that the Cardinals won the World Series again. Another theory suggests that reuniting Willie McGee and Ozzie Smith in 1996 caused a tear in the fabric of the baseball universe. Still, others posit that the arrival of Tony La Russa ushered in the magic. But why would it persist long after his departure? More straightforward explanations like the ghost of Dizzy Dean or returning to natural grass in 1995 also cannot be connected directly to team success.
This writer has his theory. In 2003, a distraught Cubs fan, wallowing in the aftermath of the Bartman incident, cut a deal he would regret. Additionally, he insisted the 2004 Cardinals be swept in the World Series. He wanted them to break the Curse of the Bambino in the process. It was then that he believed this would cause Cardinal fans to suffer as he had. There were two sides to the deal, though. The Cardinals could have whatever success that the baseball gods chose for them after 2004. In the aftermath of the sweep, the Cardinals were given what many now call the Devil Magic. It brought a championship to a 2006 club that was inferior in seemingly every way to the 2004 team. It delivered in 2011 and various playoff appearances and regular season anomalies since.
When Will the Magic Run Out?
It is anyone’s guess when the Cardinals will see their fortunes change. Perhaps the Los Angeles Dodgers or the San Francisco Giants will start at the beginning of the end this postseason. Maybe Edmundo Sosa will find himself covered in pixie dust as he hoists the World Series MVP award at the beginning of November. If the Cardinals’ pitching staff keeps pitching to soft contact and the league’s best defense keeps rolling, and the offense can continue to average six runs a game, then the magic won’t matter at all.
