Front Royal Cardinals

The Front Royal Cardinals are a collegiate summer baseball team in Front Royal, Virginia. They play in the northern division of the Valley Baseball League. Although they won a championship in 1986, success has been relatively rare for the Cardinals.

The story of their 1997 runner-up finish is one of baseball's stranger tales. They played well, finishing second in the regular season. However, a tie for fourth place (and what was then the final playoff spot) meant an unusual playoff scheme was devised: the six teams in the league then would be split into two pools (1st, 4th, 6th and 2nd, 3rd, 5th) of three teams, who would then play a round-robin. The winners of each pool would then play in a five-game series to determine the season champion.

Front Royal won its pool, going 2-0, but the three teams in the other pool each finished 1-1. The League decided to have a second round robin in the other pool, which the Winchester Royals won.

However, this made the season drag on for so long that many Cardinal players simply decided to go back home (all VBL players are in college.) While most who left waited until July 31 (the end of their commitment at the time), several players simply left the team before then, breaking the letter of their agreement with the Cardinals and the League.

By the time the final series could be played, only ten Cardinals remained, four of them pitchers. With the team melted away, the Cardinals had no choice but to forfeit all matches to the Winchester Royals.

The 2006 season was skewed as the Cardinals were forced to play several "home" games on the road due to renovations at Bing Crosby Stadium, the team's home field (they were delayed due to heavy rains in the spring and early summer of 2006.) However, with the renovations complete, the Cardinals have one of the premier facilities in the League.

• In the 2007 Valley League Baseball Playoffs, the Cards received the Number 6 seed, but lost to the Luray Wranglers in the first round.