CHICAGO—Every traditional sports rivalry has similar components—geography, divisional ties and decades of history. The Cubs-Cardinals rivalry can be similarly characterized but with one very unique attribute attached: envy.
Since Joe Torre's Yankees, the Cardinals, inarguably, have been baseball’s hallmark franchise. The Cubs? They want to be, well, the Cardinals. As blasphemous as that may sound in Cubdom, the ideals of the Theo Epstein era—prospect development, scouting and top-flight drafting—mirror those that have made St. Louis so successful.
No rebuild was to be complete until they bested baseball’s kingpin. So when the Cubs won Game 4 of the NLDS, 6-2, on Tuesday, clinching a series at Wrigley Field for the first time in the park’s 101-year history, it marked the biggest milestone in this Cubs renaissance.