There was no Mr. October, and nobody suffered a September swoon; because they played the last games of the season on August 11. The longest ever baseball strike began on August 12, 1994. It lasted until the beginning of the 1995 season when then Federal Trial Judge Sonia Sotomayor issued an injunction against Major League Baseball that effectively ended the strike.
NEW YORK (AP) — Tony Gwynn knows full well how costly a baseball strike could be.
The last time players walked out and a season was canceled, so too was Gwynn’s run at .400, Matt Williams’ bid for Roger Maris’ home run record, and a magical season in Montreal.
“There were a lot of guys having great years. We were all in the same position,” Gwynn said. “I think we made a mistake in ’94. Looking back on it, I don’t know if we gained very much. I don’t know if the owners gained very much. I think that should be an example. Both sides should look at what they accomplished and what they gained. I don’t think a strike fixed anything.”
Instead, it aborted a memorable season that also had the New York Yankees and Cleveland Indians on the verge of ending playoff droughts and Frank Thomas and Albert Belle fighting for a Triple Crown.
Read more:Sports Illustrated
After years of crisis and scandal, everything that baseball touched, it seemed, now turned to gold. The sport looked healthier than ever, raking in record revenues from gate receipts and national television contracts. Its success reflected a rapidly expanding American economy, one fueled by the dot-com boom and government deregulation that encouraged a new, often mysterious brand of go-go capitalism. If it was not always clear how so much money was to be made by new internet services or new financial instruments, it did not seem to matter, so long as investors continued to believe in them.
Donald Fehr talks about distrust between the owners and the players
Bud Selig talks the history between the Players Association and Major League Baseball.
Tom Verducci talks about the bad blood between owners and players.
Donald Fehr talks about distrust between the owners and the players
Baseball’s prosperity, it would turn out, contained its own mysteries. Underneath all the prosperity, all the success on the field, trouble was brewing. The real game, it developed, was off the field, in corporate boardrooms and hotel conference centers, where men in business suits, not baseball uniforms, would bring the sport’s revival to a jolting halt.
Read more:PBS.com