St. Louis ? What a joke.

And I’m not just speaking about the fielding of Detroit Tigers pitchers, either. There was a fundamental mistake made on Friday night long before Justin Verlander’s wild throw to third base.

While it wasn’t raining during Game 5 of the World Series, there’s no way Major League Baseball should have played on this night, not with a championship on the line. It will receive no complaints from the St. Louis Cardinals, however.

They used a strong outing by Jeff Weaver and the Verlander error that led to two unearned runs – making it eight unearned runs as the result of five errors by Detroit pitchers – to roll to a 4-2 victory to clinch the Series 4-1. It was their third win in a row over the unraveling Tigers and finished their 10th World Series championship.

The five-day, three-game stay in Missouri turned into a nightmare for Detroit, which had rolled through the first two rounds of the playoffs 7-1. The Tigers’ feeble hitting and clumsy fielding left them overmatched by a St. Louis team that had gone 83-78 during the regular season, the fewest wins ever for a champion.

Luckily for Commissioner Bud Selig, the inadequate conditions were not a factor, as they had been when Tigers center fielder Curtis Granderson slipped at a bad time in Game 4.

No matter what happened, Tigers manager Jim Leyland vowed not to use the damp, cold weather as an excuse. He’s been tight-lipped throughout, and maintained that approach before Friday’s game.

“I want to do what’s in the best interests of baseball,” Leyland said.

While Tony La Russa juggled the St. Louis rotation to start Weaver ahead of rookie Anthony Reyes, Leyland passed on a chance to move Kenny Rogers into Verlander’s spot. He had a chance because of Wednesday’s rainout but wanted to keep Rogers lined up to pitch Game 6.

But Verlander, a 17-game winner during the season, got outpitched by Weaver, who is with the Cardinals only because he was designated for assignment by the Los Angeles Angels in early July. He was 5-14 in his first 26 starts this season but finished strong and kept getting better in October.

A Scott Boras client who didn’t sign when the White Sox drafted him, Weaver was once the Tigers’ ace. On Sept. 27, 1999, after the final game at Tiger Stadium, he was one of three Detroit players who participated in a ceremony in which home plate was moved to Comerica Park.

There were a variety of reasons why the Tigers should not have been forced to try to salvage what was left of their magical season in such miserable conditions.

It was a raw, unpleasant evening after a rainy day, and the outfield grass was even more soaked by rain than a night earlier, when the slip-and-slide effect played a major role in putting Detroit in a do-or-die hole.

Baseball had a chance to do the right thing, maybe even with a Saturday day-game cherry on top. Instead, it went into let’s-get-this-over-with mode. Given the chance to easily avoid such a bad situation, this was a far worse call than the decision Selig made to declare the 2002 All-Star Game a tie after 11 innings.

That time, Selig had no choice. This one was different, as both the playing conditions and weather forecasts argued for a rainout.

At game time, the temperature was 47 with winds howling from the north-northwest at 18 mph, with gusts to 27. The grass was slick after heavy rains overnight and into the afternoon.

The forecast for today was clear with temperatures around 60, while the forecast for Detroit – site of a Game 6 – was 50 percent chance of rain, 40 degrees and 25-mph north-northwest winds.

Selig and the decision-makers at Fox mushed on, seemingly motivated by the network’s desire not to interrupt its scheduled showings of “Prison Break” and “Justice” on Monday night.

Here’s what Selig should have done:

Announce midafternoon Friday that Game 5 was off and would be played this afternoon.

If the Tigers had won Game 5, Sunday would’ve been a travel day, which would have allowed the front enough time to move through Michigan. The schedule would have resumed with Game 6 on Monday, Game 7 on Tuesday.

It was a bad call – almost bad enough to have been made by a Detroit pitcher.