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But it was usually the players that hadn't attended the meetings. There were some players who complained about not playing, but not many, a handful maybe. We didn't want them to, but they were going to. In the weeks after that, there was an occasional moment when Joe Bag Of Donuts said something, and someone had to get on the horn, but there was very little of that. There wasn't a peep from the players on the 12th, not a peep. One of the general managers said, "It's hard to beat the union when they have $300 million in the bank." We had a lot of money. The players were being distributed licensing revenue, we did it two or three times that year, they got $10,000 per check. The day itself doesn't hold any particular significance for me - I know what the date is - because I knew it was coming. GENE ORZA (MLBPA associate general counsel/COO, 1984-2011): I was the guy who made the phone calls to the player reps, to tell them "OK, we are on strike. 12, 1994: 'I knew that games were canceled, and they were gone forever'
Bill clinton 1994 mlb strike series#
14, Selig announced the World Series would be canceled for the first time since 1904.Įxactly 25 years later, Selig and others closest to the conflict share their recollections of the day baseball went dark, the immediate aftermath and the long-term fallout.Īug. Each day without a deal would get progressively worse, and on Sept. The news was crushing, from New York to Montreal to Los Angeles, and especially awful for then-acting MLB commissioner Bud Selig, in his office in Milwaukee. Now the moment fans feared, and so many in the game had hoped would be avoided, became official that fateful Friday morning: There would be no games played that day. "A strike is a last resort," Donald Fehr, then the executive director of the MLBPA, had said. In part because the owners wanted to implement revenue sharing with the use of a salary cap - which the Major League Baseball Players Association refused to accept - the 31 players on the union's executive board had voted unanimously two weeks before to go on strike if an agreement wasn't reached. A deadline had been set. And kids everywhere, including a 9-year-old from Visalia, California, were living life through baseball.īut when midnight ET struck on Aug. Minor leaguers awaited a September call-up, in some cases to make their major league debuts. 400 batting average since Ted Williams in 1941. Players were having spectacular seasons, none better than future Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn, who at. The Expos looked like they might make history - and, in hindsight, possibly save baseball in Montreal. It was the summer of 1994, and, on the field, baseball was thriving. MLB, Washington Nationals, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres, Milwaukee Brewers 'Oh my God, how can we do this?': An oral history of the 1994 MLB strike
Bill clinton 1994 mlb strike upgrade#
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