There were times during the St Louis Cardinals' triumphant World Series campaign when even James Bond might have closed his eyes and solemnly surrendered to the inevitable. They looked down the barrel on numerous occasions during their eight-month season, yet survived to win their 11th World Series with a 6-2 victory over the Texas Rangers in the decisive seventh game on Friday.

It was an appropriate denouement to a season rich in tales of the unexpected. "This is what you dream about. Truly a dream come true," said Tony La Russa, the Cardinals manager, who claimed his third World Series at the age of 67.

"It's hard to imagine it actually happened. If you watch the history of baseball, teams come back, and sometimes they could have come back but they give in or give up. I knew the character of our team.

"I challenged them to not give up [and to] start winning some games to regain some respect. Then they just started playing every game like it's the last game and were relentless until the end."

It was a triumph of the human spirit. The Cardinals were not even supposed to reach the World Series, never mind win it. At one stage, they were 10-and-a-half games behind the Atlanta Braves in their pursuit of a wildcard place. Then, in the play-offs, they came from behind to beat the Philadelphia Phillies and the Milwaukee Brewers.

"This whole ride, this team deserves this," said David Freese, who added the Most Valuable Player award for the World Series to his trophy as the National League's MVP.

Freese had been the hero 24 hours earlier, in an epic Game Six. The Cardinals twice came back from two runs down, while down to their final strike, before Freese spanked the winning home run. That 10-9 victory took the World Series to Game Seven for the first time since 2002.

In the decider, they shut out the Rangers for eight straight innings, with the Cardinals pitcher Chris Carpenter exerting control. The match was over when the Rangers' David Murphy flied out to the Cardinals' left field, Allen Craig, who had earlier hit his third home run of the Series.

For Texas, it was an agonisingly familiar tale: last year they were beaten 4-1 by the San Francisco Giants and the wait for their first World Series goes on. Not since Atlanta in 1991-92 had a team lost consecutive World Series. "We were close," said the Texas pitcher, Colby Lewis. "Two times. Game Six. That's it."

Ron Washington, the Texas manager, said: "It was in our grasp and we didn't get it. Tonight we fought hard for it and the Cardinals got it. Sometimes when opportunity is in your presence, you certainly can't let it get away because sometimes it takes a while before it comes back.

"If there's one thing that happened in this World Series that I'll look back on is being so close, just having one pitch to be made and one out to be gotten, and it could have been a different story."

As it is, the story of the 2011 World Series will stay in the memory for a very long time.