3. St. Louis Cardinals, 1941-1946
The arrival of Stan Musial late in the 1941 season was not enough to rally the Cardinals, who won 97 games but fell three short of matching the Dodgers.
But once the Cardinals got Musial for a full season in 1942, they couldn’t be stopped. They won the World Series that year, repeated in 1944 and took a third title in five seasons in 1946. They also won the 1943 National League pennant but lost to the Yankees in the World Series.
Their chances in 1945 took a hit when Musial was called into military service during World War II. It was a significant loss; Musial was the 1943 and 1944 batting champion.
But in the depleted World War II game, the Cardinals had enough weapons to thrive, at least on the field. The Cooper boys (catcher Walker and pitcher Mort) may have been the era’s best battery. Marty Marion was a fixture at shortstop, third baseman Whitey Kurowski was a powerhouse whose military ineligibility due to osteomyelitis only enhanced his on-field value. The same was true of the chronic back problems that kept Johnny Hopp stateside.
For the six-season period, the Cardinals rolled to a combined 606 victories against just 330 defeats. That’s a .647 winning percentage. Incredibly, in none of those six seasons did the Cardinals win fewer than 60 percent of their games.