Going back to the start of divisional play in 1969, you can count on one hand the number of days the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals have been the two best teams in the National League after the Fourth of July.

Much of the credit for that goes to the Cubs, who for years have been out of the pennant chase by the time the weather heats up.

In 2004, however, St. Louis and Chicago were 1-2 respectively in the NL for the first two days after the Fourth. The third and only other day in the last 39 years is Saturday afternoon, when the Cubs and Cards square off in Game 2 of their weekend series in St. Louis.

The Cubs took Friday night’s opener, 2-1, with staff ace Carlos Zambrano returning from a stint on the disabled list to claim his first win in four starts, dating to June 2. With Zambrano pitching six scoreless frames and Kosuke Fukudome and Geovany Soto drilling home runs, the Cubs improved to 52-35 and continue to sport the league’s highest winning percentage at .598.

The Cardinals fell 3.5 games behind first-place Chicago, though the 49-39 Cards still have the NL’s second-highest wining percent (.557). Despite Friday’s loss, St. Louis still has the edge in wins going head-to-head with Chicago during the division era, 323-322 with a tie. Talk about a rivalry.

Just in case there wasn’t enough interest in this weekend’s series, St. Louis manager Tony La Russa lit some Fourth of July fireworks. He was bent out of shape by recent comments made by former Cardinal Jim Edmonds. The better verb is "overreacted."

Edmonds has endured a common phenomenon in sports coverage in Chicago. A good story line doesn’t go away overnight, and reporters here seem prone to asking the question -- or a series of questions about one and only one topic -- over and over again.

The 38-year-old veteran has faced a steady barrage of questions about fitting in with the Cubs after eight seasons in St. Louis. Choosing to look forward rather than backward, Edmonds asked reporters to quit bringing up his St. Louis years in interviews. Apparently La Russa took it as a slight that Edmonds didn’t want to be associated with the Cards.

“I was trying to fit in with Chicago and everybody kept asking me questions about trying to fit in,” Edmonds told the AP’s R.B. Fallstrom. “So if that was what it was, obviously that was taken out of context.” Apparently La Russa didn’t see it that way.

“Are we indebted to him? For what?” La Russa responded. “Didn’t he play in a bunch of postseasons? How many of the postseasons was he in before he got here? None.

“He got to a World Series, too, and he was paid for it. I mean, there isn’t anything he gave us that we didn’t give him back, is there?”

Perhaps this is La Russa trying to light a few firecrackers in his own clubhouse. After all, the Cardinals are 7-10 since June 12, a stretch in which they lost four of six to the cross-state Royals.

Reportedly La Russa and Edmonds have a good relationship -- or at least had one. La Russa said he would ignore his former center fielder this weekend, being Edmonds was inclined to ignore his Cardinals heritage.

As a player who has spent more than a few days on a Chicago baseball club, Edmonds is quick to realize that the story has been overblown. And he’s not concerned with the comments of his long-time skipper.

“If he ignores me, I’m going to punch him in the mouth,” Edmonds joked. “I think he’s trying to stir it up. He gets a little excited about this rivalry.”

For what it’s worth, controversy or no controversy, Cardinals fans greeted Edmonds warmly in his first 2008 visit. It didn’t matter that he had asked to be traded over the winter, after it was apparent he would be a bench player in the final year of his contract.

Edmonds, a popular player in St. Louis and a member of the 2006 World Series champions, doffed his helmet after a lengthy ovation Friday. Of course, love from the other side is short-lived in this rivalry, which continues Saturday with Lilly facing Lohse.