Nationally, when baseball rivalries are discussed, it’s usually the one that involves two teams called the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox that get the attention.  Actually, it’s always that particular rivalry, but there is also another one in the old Midwest that is pretty good too.  This year, it’s even more interesting, as the Chicago Cubs sit pretty comfortably on top of the Central Division with the St. Louis Cardinals right in the Wild Card race.  The two teams have never met in the postseason, but if they did, families and friendships would be torn apart, and it would surely be one of the most intense NLCSes in history.  This weekend, the Cards visit Wrigley Field for the first time this season, and it’s one of the hottest tickets of the season in Chicago.  The Top 7 this week takes a look at some of the best moments in this rivalry this decade.

7. Gary Freaking Bennett

Back in 2006, when the Cardinals were trying their hardest to blow a playoff spot and not eventually win the World Series, they kept blowing leads.  They had a 6-3 lead early in the game but the Cubs came back to tie it at 6.  In the bottom of the 9th, the Cards had the bases loaded, and Gary Bennett, who had the game-winning hit the day before, hit a grand slam to give them the win.  The chances of Gary Bennett winning back-to-back games on walk-off hits, one of them being a grand slam, has to be someone in the one-in-a-trillion range.

6. Zambrano vs. Edmonds

Carlos Zambrano and Jim Edmonds had a strange thing going on for awhile.  After a 2004 Edmonds homer, Zambrano screamed at him the entire way around the bases.  He was later ejected after throwing at Edmonds for what seemed like the 10th time.  Now the two are teammates, and it’s nearly impossible to get used to seeing Edmonds in a Cub uniform, sort of the Cardinal fan equivalent of the “E” in WWE.

5. Cards Comeback I

On Sunday night baseball in 2002, the Cardinals scored an amazing six runs in the bottom of the ninth to win the game 10-9, capped by a three-run homer by Edgar Renteria.  It showcased one of Cub fans’ all-time non-favorites, Antonio Alfonseca.

4. Alex Gonzalez

No current Cub player kills the Cardinals more than Aramis Ramirez, but Alex Gonzalez was a former Cardinal killer.  He had two walk-off hits against the Cards in 2003, one an extra-inning homer in May, and another on a bases-loaded single in July.  2003 was a brutal, brutal season for Cardinal fans in the rivalry, as later evidenced.

3. Cards Comeback II

In 2004, nervous Cards fans still were not sure if they had a team that was for real, while Cub fans were still confident that their team would come back and win the division as was expected by nearly everyone at the start of the season.  When they met in this game at Wrigley in July, the Cubs took an 8-2 lead into the sixth before Albert Pujols commenced destruction—5 for 5, three homers (including a go-ahead two-run dong), and 5 RsBI in the best game of his career.  Another famous moment of this game was So Taguchi’s game-tying bomb off of Kyle Farnsworth.  After this game, Cards fans were pretty sure they had a squad, and the Cubs tailed off at the end of the season, failing to make the playoffs.

2. Five games in September

Yes, most of these entries are pro-Cardinals…of course they are, what do you expect?  But this one still hurts five years later and is worth about three or four entries.  Thanks to rainouts, the Cards and Cubs played a five-game series in September of 2003 in Chicago, and they were some of the most intense regular season games that either fanbase can ever recall.  Cards fans will remember missed opportunities, blown leads, errors, and four out of five painful losses.  Cub fans will remember putting the Cards away as they basically finished off a division title.

1. Pujols vs. Wood

July 4, 2003.  Jim Edmonds had just hit a home run off of Kerry Wood.  Albert Pujols stepped up and Wood threw a pitch right towards his head, sending him to the deck.  On the very next pitch, Pujols annihilated one into the center field seats.  It’s very rare that Pujols doesn’t eventually get the best of you.

The Top 7 is written by Jason Major. He lost in a game of tag to Pujols in under 10 seconds. Email him at jason@joesportsfan.com