The Cardinals went 83-78 this year. They were outscored by their opponents by 19 runs. Their fans, who have the repuation of being supportive and positive and almost Norman Rockwellian, booed them lustily in September.


They aren’t one of the best half-dozen teams in the sport. And they won the World Series in five games.


Naturally.


Compared to the Cardinals, the Tigers won more games, scored more runs and allowed fewer, in a better league. Their starting pitching — the one supposed above-all-others requisite for postseason success — is clearly superior. The position that the Cardinals should have been favored is one that cannot be defended.


But nobody should be surprised that they won. A short series in baseball is not quite a lottery, but closer to a lottery than to a definitive method of identifying a champion.


It’s always been like this.


The 1990 Series pitted the Oakland A’s of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, one of the 3-4 best teams of the last 20 years, against Cincinnati, which may not have been one of the 3-4 best teams of 1990.


The Reds not only won, they swept the thing. In 1987, the Minnesota Twins went 86-76, an OK record that was miraculous considering they finished eighth in a 14-team league in runs, and ninth in runs allowed, and were outscored 806-786.


They won the World Series. In the 1960 Series, the Yankees won games 16-3, 12-0 and 10-0, and outscored the Pirates by an aggregate 55-26. The Pirates won, of course. The Yankees promptly fired their manager, some slacker called Casey Stengel.


There would never have been a Yankee dynasty if they’d had to win three playoff series every year. There will never be anything like a dynasty in this sport, ever, as long as there are three rounds to the playoffs The key here is sample size. Over seven baseball games you can outscore the other guys by a 2-to-1 margin and lose. Over 100, you can’t.


Over seven games Pudge Rodriguez can be Brad Ausmus and Placido Polanco can be Joe Morgan and Jeff Suppan can be Bob Gibson. Over 100 games, they can’t.


No way the ’90 Reds or ’60 Pirates win a best-of-101 World Series.


This is not to actually suggest they actually make the World Series best-of-101. At least as long as Fox is broadcasting it.


The truth is the postseason, and especially the current setup with the wild card and three rounds of playoffs, makes competitive balance a moot point. In a short series, you just don’t have to be better to win.


The Cardinals are baseball’s seventh different champion in the last seven years. That has never happened in the NFL or NBA.


Further, every single series of this postseason was been won by the underdog, which of course means there are no underdogs.


I’m assuming I don’t have to tell you that’s never happened in football or hoops, either.



— The plan here was to make fun of Fox’s broadcast team of Tim McCarver and Joe Buck.


The truth is McCarver and Buck have been OK. Fine, actually. Not good, probably, but fine. Their job is harder than you think. My heart’s not in it.


Thank God we still have the pregame show to fall back on. To put it succinctly: Jeannie Zelasko?


As annoying as, say, Dick Vitale is, you can at least understand what TV thinks they’re giving you with a guy like that: a colorful and unique (if obnoxious and ineffective) style of communicating.


But: Jeannie Zelasko? Think about it — that some suit must have looked at an audition tape, saw Zelasko standing under her Mary-Tyler-Moore-Show pile of hair and thought, man there’s our studio quarterback, right there. That woman brings something to the table.


Right? On some level that had to happen.


I just don’t get it.


If you ran a TV station in Dubuque, Iowa, would you hire Zelasko to read the farm report? If you saw Zelasko on local TV in Dubuque, would you think, wow, this lady is headed for big things?


I don’t even dislike Zelasko. She isn’t interesting enough to dislike. It’s not her fault Fox doesn’t care about baseball.


Then again, compared to Fox pregame “analyst” Kevin Kennedy, Zelasko is Edward R. Murrow.


Before the Series started, Kennedy advocated the Tigers starting Kenny Rogers in Game Two with the following argument:


“Because if you’re up, you can go up 2-0; if you’re down, you can tie it up.”


Now that’s breakin’ it down.


— Tony La Russa and Jim Leyland are nice guys. Gentlemen. Are they too nice?


Leyland admitted the other day that he wanted to have his pitchers start taking batting practice in July, in preparation for a possible World Series, but didn’t because, “That might have rubbed the Twins and White Sox the wrong way, for us to act like we’re assuming we’re already in the World Series.’’


And then there was La Russa, in the first inning of Game Two, appearing to suggest to umpire Alfonso Marquez that perhaps, with all due respect, that fellow pitching for Detroit may have a dab on untoward substance on his throwing hand and would he mind taking a closer look, just to be on the safe side?


Geez. Not “showing anybody up’’ has become almost as important as winning.


Have to wonder what Earl Weaver thinks of all this. — Of all American cities except maybe Nashville, Detroit may have the richest popular-music history.


There’s Bob Seger and the White Stripes and George Clinton and, of course, Motown Records, comprising Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross and Steve Wonder and Smokey Robinson, etc, etc.


So naturally the ceremonial singers for Games One and Two of the Series, in Detroit, are ... Anita Baker and some geek from “American Idol.’’


And the pregame entertainment for Game One is John Cougar Mellencamp singing his car-commerical song, which amounts to free advertising for Chevrolet.


Chevrolet, whose go-to songwriter for commericals used to be Detroit’s own Seger.


Ye Gods.




Mike Gross is a Sunday News sports writer. E-mail him at mgross@lnpnews.com.