It took about two hours Monday for the

NL Central champion St. Louis Cardinals to sell out all of

their playoff games leading up to the World Series.

 

Tickets for the division series and the National League

Championship Series went on sale at 9 a.m. Monday and were

sold out by around 11 a.m.

 

World Series tickets will be sold later.

 

For the first time, playoff tickets were not sold at the

Busch Stadium ticket office or at other ticket outlets; they

were sold online through the Cardinals' Web site and by

phone. The team said problems with long lines and new stadium

construction prompted the change. The new Busch Stadium is

being built next to the existing ballpark, which will be

demolished at the end of the season.

 

It wasn't immediately clear how many tickets were sold.

The team had expected to have about 14,000 tickets available

for each division series game and about 13,000 for each NLCS

game.

 

The Cardinals became the first team to clinch a playoff

berth after beating the Chicago Cubs 6-1 Thursday. At 95-56,

they have baseball's best record and will have home-field

advantage in all NL playoff games. The American League team

will have home-field advantage in the World Series because

the AL won the All-Star game.

It's great how the Braves can never ever sellout in the playoffs.