For Cubs and Cardinals, Dodgers and Giants, renewed rivalries should sizzle all summer

11:42 AM ET

ST. LOUIS — By the middle of last week, as Mike Matheny was focused on digging his team out of a slow start in Pittsburgh and beating the Milwaukee Brewers, he began getting ticket requests from friends and neighbors. People in St. Louis were fixated two series down the schedule, on the Chicago Cubs.

“You can see the legitimate … I don’t know how to say it. Hatred? Close to it,” Matheny said. “That drives people to the fields and creates energy and an environment we talk about a lot. It’s fun to play in, whether it’s for you or against you.”

Matheny has been in those environments more frequently than most baseball men. He played five of his 13 seasons for the St. Louis Cardinals and two for the San Francisco Giants, who have been knocking heads — sometimes literally — with the Los Angeles Dodgers for more than a century. Matheny has managed the Cardinals since 2012.

While the New York Yankees’ rivalry with the Boston Red Sox remains baseball’s marquee grudge match, Cubs-Cardinals and Giants-Dodgers have closed ground in recent seasons. The teams have simply been better. The Giants have won three World Series since 2010, raising Dodgers’ fans ire. The Dodgers have won their division three straight years. The Cubs and Cardinals finished with two of the three best records in baseball last season, and the Cardinals have been world champions twice in the past 10 years. All four teams are off to strong starts in 2016.

Matheny sees the similarities between the two west-of-the-Mississippi rivalries, but he sees clear-cut differences, as well. The hostility is toned down in the middle of the country, he said.

“The one thing I feel about the Cardinals-Cubs rivalry is you see fans interacting pretty well,” he said. “There’s a lot of banter back and forth. It doesn’t typically get as violent, I don’t think. Stuff like that can happen anywhere, but it feels like it’s pretty good-natured here. Even when you go to Wrigley, you can see there’d be a Cardinal guy out there, and they’re just wearing him out, yelling, he may even get a beer thrown on him, and for the most part, it stays constrained. Same thing here.”

Until now, what did Cardinals fans have to be angry about? Their team has won 11 World Series since the Cubs won their last one 108 years ago. Well, now there is a fear that the terrain could be shifting. Coming off a 97-win season, the Cubs snatched free agents Jason Heyward and John Lackey off the …

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