A Look Back at the 1994 Baseball Strike
Perhaps it was the greatest story never completed. It was a season filled with boyhood dreams and lasting memories. The game of baseball was on the verge of a renaissance in 1994 as a new generation of stars prepared to assume a place among the elite. In the wake of Oriole Park in Camden Yards, new baseball exclusive ballparks opened in Cleveland and Arlington, Texas. A playoff system featuring Wild Card winners made its debut allowing second-place teams a chance of October.
New frontiers, peaks, and valleys were within reach. Hallowed statistical benchmarks of a .406 batting average and 61 home runs on the verge of being surpassed. While the product on the field was on the precipice of transcending the sport, fractious relationships between the players and owners escalated. Callous disagreements over revenue sharing, free agency, and the future of baseball placed both sides at a deadlock. On August 12, 1994, the players went on strike. Thirty-two days later the playoffs and World Series were canceled. The fundamental structure of the game was fractured, and the seeds of unresolved issues continue to plague baseball nearly twenty years to the day of the strike.
Until the formation of the MLBPA in 1966, ballplayers had no counsel to negotiate with owners. The Reserve Clause bound a player to his team for the duration of his career unless traded. Any player who objected were free to pursue another means of employment. Marvin Miller, the former head of the US Steel Workers Union collaborated with the players in 1966 to form the Major League Baseball Player’s Association, with Miller as its executive director. Miller pushed the owners to improve the working conditions for their employees. The landmark decision by arbitrator Peter Seitz in 1975 granted unrestricted free agency to pitchers Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith.
The barriers became broken and in turn, the trust between the owners and players. As salaries rose, owners began to deride free agency and sought various means to eliminate the practice. A two-month player’s strike in 1981 over a proposal to evenly compensate teams for losses led to a split season, draft pick compensation and salary arbitration. Four years later, Commissioner Peter Ueberroth met with baseball owners during the World Series and advised them to avoid signing any free agents. From 1985 to 1988 the free-agent market had dried up, and players were forced to return to their old teams at the same base salaries, in practice known as “collusion.” The word about collusion began to spread, and the players who were wronged by the process were granted free agency, many of whom had significant impacts on baseball history.
Outfielder Kirk Gibson took his talents to the Los Angeles Dodgers following collusion. He proceeded to win the 1988 NL MVP and hit his now-famous walk-off home run off Dennis Eckersley in the World Series. Desperate to leave Montreal, Andre Dawson gave the Chicago Cubs a blank check for his services. Making just $500,000 in 1987, Dawson captured MVP honors and the hearts of the Chicago faithful. Dawson’s former teammate Tim Raines had lesser luck, sitting out the entire winter in 1987, only to return to the Expos on May 2 for a smaller salary. Raines homered off the Mets Jesse Orosco in the tenth inning of his first game back at Shea Stadium on the Saturday Game of the Week. The memories of these individuals resonated as did the deep wounds of collusion.
Though free agency tore at the fabric of baseball’s economic system, television broadcast rights created a massive divide between the small market and large market teams. The cable television industry exploded during the 1980s and clubs such as the Atlanta Braves, and the Chicago Cubs had lucrative deals and national exposure through TBS and WGN respectively. By 1988 the landscape was changing. The New York Yankees agreed to a twelve-year, 486 million dollar pact with the Madison Square Garden Network. The economic advantage of the big market clubs dwarfed their competitors.
To offset these changes, Ueberroth invested heavily in cable, agreeing to a long-term deal with ESPN beginning in 1990. Baseball’s longstanding agreements with the broadcast networks NBC and ABC were now deemed insufficient as ratings and revenue took precedence over prestige. Baseball sought a new rights-holder for broadcast coverage and leaped into the desperate arms of CBS and their president Laurence Tisch, agreeing to an unprecedented four-year deal worth a total of one billion dollars from 1990 through 1993. CBS had fallen behind ABC and NBC in the ratings and saw sports as a means to promote its fall programming. The Saturday Game of the Week from NBC was but eliminated by infrequent telecasts on CBS. Scheduling, instability, a recession, and lack of promotion caused CBS to lose $500 million on the agreement, forcing baseball to agree to a progressive television deal for 1994.
On the heels of the CBS deal, baseball again decided to maximize ratings with fewer games. Major League Baseball entered a joint venture with former partners ABC and NBC called “The Baseball Network.” The agreement called for twelve regionalized telecasts during the second half of the season along with the postseason, with all revenue generated through advertising. Regionalized games fragmented and alienated audiences, especially in two-team markets where The Baseball Network chose to air just one team with other blacked out. The Baseball Network held exclusivity for the entire day of coverage, causing Cubs games played during the day to radio exclusively. The rigidness of the contract caused Bob Costas to refer to the Baseball Network as “stupid and an abomination.”
The tension between owners and players extended to the owners themselves, who believed commissioner Fay Vincent did not appropriately serve their interests. The once head of Columbia Pictures, Vincent assumed the commissioner’s role following the death of his mentor Bart Giamatti who perished from a heart attack just one week after placing Pete Rose on baseball’s permanently ineligible list only eight months into his tenure. Vincent initially gained the respect of the media and ownership by swiftly helping the Bay Area recover following the devastating earthquake interrupting the 1989 World Series. Vincent’s propensity for siding with the players and failing to appease the owners led his resignation in 1992 following a coup led by owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Bud Selig installing Selig as commissioner. The owners continued to clash over finances and decided a strike in August of 1994 would be the only way to implement a salary cap.
While baseball faced insurmountable structural issues, the timing could not have been worse for the game to shut down. For the first time since Roger Maris hit 61 home runs in 1961, three players were within striking distance of breaking his record, most notably San Francisco Giants third baseman Matt Williams with 43 home runs on August 12 after 112 games played. Just two-year prior, the San Francisco Giants had faced the threat of relocation to St. Petersburg, Florida after the city council chose not to replace Candlestick Park. The Giants had played their last game of the 1992 season in front of a five-year-old by the name of Brandon Crawford and thousands of Giants fans. At the eleventh hour, the Safeway magnate Peter McGowan purchased the team and hoped signing a free agent such as Barry Bonds would lead to a new ballpark in San Francisco.
The combination of Bonds and Williams enabled the Giants to win 103 games in 1993, finishing one game behind the Atlanta Braves in the National League West during the final season before the advent of the wild card. Baseball agreed to a three-division format for the 1994 season with one wild-card winner in each league and an extra tier of playoffs. For the first time in baseball history, a second-place team would qualify for the postseason. The plan faced much controversy and scrutiny for eliminating pennant races. For a team like the Giants, the solace of the wild card had arrived one year too late.
The 1941 season would be remembered for both Joe DiMaggio‘s 56 game hitting streak, and Ted Williams became the last man to hit for a .400 batting average at .406. Fifty-three years later, San Diego Padres outfielder Tony Gwynn perhaps made the most significant run at .400, with a .394 batting average at the time of the strike. Gwynn, a fierce union supporter and a staunch advocate of game’s best interests, realized the opportunity might only occur once. Given Gwynn’s propensity for serving the ball between second base and shortstop, many wonder if he could have reached the illustrious figure had the season finished without a work stoppage.
Perhaps the team with the greatest to lose were the Montreal Expos. Three years after original owner Charles Bronfman sold the team to Claude Brochu, the Expos cultivated one of the finest collections of young talents in the game, led by Marquis Grissom, Larry Walker, John Wetteland, and Ken Hill. Under future general managers Dave Dombrowski and Dan Duquette, the Expos placed a renewed emphasis on building through the farm system. By 1994, the Expos held the best record in baseball at 74–40 aided by the offseason acquisition of a little known reliever by the name of Pedro Martinez from the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Expos were constructed to win. Starting pitcher, Jeff Fassero was the lone player on the roster above thirty years of age. Olympic Stadium drew a high volume of fans on a nightly basis. A walk-off inside the park home run off the bat of Marquis Grissom on August 1 solidified the Expos place as the best team in the sport. The effects of the strike in Montreal were devastating. Grissom, Wetteland, Walker, and Hill were gone by 1995 after ownership slashed payroll to make ends meet and the franchise itself moved to Washington DC a decade later.
The 1994 season also marked the first time the New York Yankees had a legitimate chance at playoff contention since 1981. The career for captain Don Mattingly was beginning to fade away. Back trouble had sapped the once potent superstar of his limitless ability with 1994 representing perhaps his lone chance at playing in the postseason. Mattingly re-invented himself as a potential .300 hitter with a stellar glove. Like Mattingly, the Yankees underwent a massive makeover of their own when Principal Owner George Steinbrenner was suspended for three seasons after conspiring with gambler Howard Spira for inside information on Dave Winfield. Three years proved to be a sufficient amount of time for the Yankees to develop through a stacked farm system, highlighted by centerfielder Bernie Williams with Derek Jeter and others to follow by 1995. The acquisitions of Paul O’Neill, Jimmy Key, and Wade Boggs, along with the leadership of Buck Showalter in the dugout and Gene “Stick” Michael in the front office, provided a nucleus for future success. A 70–43 was the AL’s best. Buck Showalter had won AL Manager of the Year following the season, but their full potential wouldn’t come to fruition until Joe Torre led the Yankees to a World Series title two seasons later.
Given the scope of baseball’s issues, the growing epidemic of steroid use had fallen on deaf ears. Steroids were first being used in baseball during the mid-1980s by the Oakland Athletics, primarily Jose Canseco. Its impact began to slowly spread as the competitive juices flowed to remain productive for a prolonged period. Experimentation took place, and the players began to educate itself of its use. Philadelphia Phillies centerfielder Lenny Dykstra became an NL MVP candidate in 1993, and lead his club to the World Series, enhanced by anabolic steroids provided by personal trainer Kirk Radomski. Dykstra and Radomski became close friends with the New York Mets when Radomski served as a clubhouse attendant. While steroids were made illegal in the United States in 1990, baseball was more concerned with growing cocaine use by its All-Stars. As the players and checkbooks grew, so did scrutiny, questions, and suspicions about its practices, many which baseball continues to battle today.
The players had struck on August 12 to protect themselves with the intentions of ownership. One month later, the remainder of the season and the World Series were canceled. The fans began to take sides. Player’s union representatives Tom Glavine and David Cone became reviled by the same fans who once revered them. The trust between the public and the fans quickly fractured. At a time when their competitors were achieving prosperity, the impact of baseball was non-existent. The National Football League, which long before lapped baseball in popularity signed a lucrative broadcast deal with the upstart FOX network and built around its stars Emmitt Smith, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, and Barry Sanders. The NBA, despite the loss of Michael Jordan to retirement, experienced a tightly contested seven-game NBA Finals seeing Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets defeat Patrick Ewing and the New York Knicks. For the first time since 1940, the New York Rangers had captivated the sport of hockey by winning the Stanley Cup in seven games over the Vancouver Canucks. The NHL, like the NBA, and the NFL was on the verge of establishing itself in the United States. The game of baseball could no longer compete, and its reputation tarnished.
The strike dragged on through the winter of 1995 with both sides remaining far apart. The owners, fearful of losing more revenue, decided to unilaterally implement a salary cap and begin Spring Training with replacement players. Names such as Damian Miller, Kevin Millar, and Shane Spencer established themselves later in their careers, but they were forever remembered in clubhouses for crossing the picket line. The demarcation lines between the media, the fans, and the baseball continued to grow. On March 26, 1995, Congress interviewed. New York judge and future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor determined that the owners failed to negotiate in good faith by unilaterally implementing a salary cap and ordered the players back to work based on the terms of the previous basic agreement.
The 1994 strike was a battle absent of a winner. Many people were alienated and disenfranchised from the game entirely. Hall of Fame broadcaster and former Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek stayed away from the game and never returned. “I hate what the game’s become. The greed, the nastiness. You can be married to baseball, give your heart to it, but when it starts taking over your soul, it’s time to say whoa.”, Kubek said. Time began to heal most wounds, primarily the home run race between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa during the 1998 season. Given how the 1998 season revolutionized the sport, some wonder if 1994 could have had the same impact had there been no strike and whether the history of the game would change?
Would the Montreal Expos have still been playing in Quebec today? Would the Seattle Mariners be in Washington DC instead of the Nationals? Would Buck Showalter have led the Yankees to the same dynasty as Joe Torre? Would Joe Torre even be in the Hall of Fame today? The strike of 1994 transcended the game in unimaginable ways. The promise of the 1994 season is replayed continuously in the minds of baseball fans, who wonder what could have been? While the possible outcomes are limitless, in reality, there is just one, an understanding of where the game once was and its transformation regaining its place as the national pastime.
(Article originally featured on Baseball Essential in 2014)