The Cardinals and Browns at Sportsman's Park

The St. Louis Cardinals

The Mound City club was known as the Browns when it was in the National League in 1876, and the Maroons when it returned to the National in 1885 after Henry V. Lucas had his fling in the Union Association. The team was called the Browns on re-entering the National in 1892. The players kept on wearing that color until 1899. In that year, they first became known as the Cardinals because of the cardinal trimming on their uniforms. The nickname was given by William McHale, a baseball writer with the St. Louis Republic.

The St. Louis Browns

When the American League came into St. Louis in 1902, the club was called the Browns, the name used by Charles A. Comiskey's famous American Association club--the four-time St. Louis winners of 1885 through 1888. Once the Browns of pre-American League days had to compete with the St. Louis Maroons. And when Chris Von der Ahe organized a Western Association team at St. Louis in 1888, it was called the Whites.