ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals capped a postseason nobody figured they’d be part of by defeating the Texas Rangers 6-2 Friday night in Game 7 of the World Series. The resilient Redbirds couldn’t be vanquished.

In the waning days of August, St. Louis had a 0.2 percent chance of reaching the playoffs, according to AccuScore, a company that calculates probabilities by running thousands of game simulations. Expressed another way, the Cardinals faced 1 in 500 odds.

And that was to make the playoffs. Their chances of winning the World Series were minuscule, like a speck of Midwestern dust somehow reaching Manhattan or Malibu. It might have been the greatest comeback in baseball history.

The Cardinals squeaked into the playoffs the last day of the regular season, earning the wild-card berth primarily because the Atlanta Braves folded down the stretch. Once in, they proved they belonged, beating the Philadelphia Phillies in five division series games and the Milwaukee Brewers in six championship series games.

After falling behind three games to two in the World Series by losing Games 4 and 5 in Arlington, Texas, the Cardinals were on the brink of elimination. Twice in Game 6 they were down to their last strike, only to rally.

And Friday night in front of an adoring sellout crowd donned in red, the Cardinals celebrated the 11th Series championship in the storied history of the franchise. Talk about flying high.