jwetz, I understand. Being that the Cubs are the Cards long heated rival, I have experienced that "fandom". You almost have to get drunk on a daily basis to even put up with that fan base.
I think that its not the fact that Cards fans are upset with the Reds for being contenders but how our team was just an epic fail this year. No intensity, no fundamentals. This team set back Cardinals baseball 40 years to those 70's teams that were just bad. We have come to expect through the years that Cards teams would play a hard 9 innings and be fundamentally sound. I was too depressed as a baseball fan to even stomach the dreck I was seeing from our team the last month of the year. I think there was some big headedness in Cardinals nation but it mostly it was due to how bad they were this year, not anything to do with the Reds success within the division.