7 great St. Louis Cardinals who never won a World Series with the team

Winning individual awards for players is an accomplishment in and of itself. Players work their entire careers to be dubbed the best at a particular thing, be it pitching, hitting, or fielding. Winning a Gold Glove, Silver Slugger, Cy Young, or MVP trophy is a feat that a finite number of players accomplish each year.

However, the goal of every player who has ever played Major League Baseball knows that winning a World Series trophy is the pinnacle of accomplishments.

This year's World Series pits the Los Angeles Dodgers and Toronto Blue Jays against each other. The Dodgers won last year, so several of their players have already received a ring. Since the Blue Jays haven't made it to the World Series in 33 years, several players for Toronto are hunting their first ring.

Max Scherzer of the Blue Jays is playing in the World Series with his fourth different time. Clayton Kershaw, Freddie Freeman, and Mookie Betts are no strangers to the spotlight. There is one man who has long been associated with MLB who is seeking his first World Series victory: Don Mattingly.

Mattingly, who is in his 39th season in professional baseball, 17 years as a player, 12 years as a manager, and now in his tenth year as a coach, is in his first World Series ever. How a man who has won an MVP, nine Gold Gloves, and a batting title, along with a Manager of the Year Award, hasn't made it to baseball's biggest stage after nearly 40 years in the sport is baffling. Mattingly is looking to get his first World Series ring this year with the Blue Jays.

This got me thinking: which great St. Louis Cardinals have never won a World Series?

For a franchise as historic as the Cardinals, the number of great players who didn't win is small compared to the list of great players who did win. Stan Musial and Enos Slaughter won three times as players, Red Schoendienst won twice as a player and twice as a coach/manager, Albert Pujols, Bob Gibson, Lou Brock, and Yadier Molina all have two rings, and Ozzie Smith, Ken Boyer, and Willie McGee all have one ring.

The Cardinals as a franchise have gone only three decades without a World Series championship, excluding the in-progress 2020s. Only the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s went by without the Cardinals winning a World Series. That's an impressive track record of ultimate success.

Any great Cardinals who played in those decades went without a ring. Several others were sandwiched around the ample success the franchise has seen and therefore missed out on winning the Fall Classic.

There are several legends throughout baseball who never won a World Series including Mike Trout, Ichiro Suzuki, Ted Williams, and Barry Bonds. There are also several Cardinal greats who never reached the apex of baseball success. This lack of a ring shouldn't take away from the players' legend, though. They still saw plenty of individual and team success despite not being able to finish the job.

Author's note: Mark McGwire, Matt Carpenter, and others will not be included in this list. McGwire won in 2011 as a coach, and Matt Carpenter did play in 2011 with the club, though he wasn't on the World Series roster that year. Several other great Cardinals have similar occurrences to these two and won't be included.

These 7 St. Louis Cardinals legends never won a World Series with the team.