This Day In Baseball History: The 1994 Players Strike

                August 12, 1994 was the day that the Major League Baseball Players Association voted to go on strike, an act that would eventually wipe out the rest of the regular season, the playoffs and the World Series. Owners lost an estimated $580 million in revenue and the players lost an estimated $230 million in salaries.

                But it was the fans who lost the most, with the players and ownerships, fighting over who cares what, doing what two World Wars couldn’t: cancel the World Series.

                Twenty-one years later, some fans still feel the hurt of the strike. Particuarly in Montreal where the Expos, who were in first place in the National League East at the time of the strike, are no longer playing in that city, having moved to Washington after the 2004 season, following a decade of poor attendance, blamed on the strike.

                I lived in Toronto for practically all of the last decade and most of this one, and I couldn’t believe that some people were still bitter about the strike. Most of those people would say that the strike soured them on baseball and they haven’t cared about it since.

                I would bring up the fact that the National Hockey League has gone on strike three times since then, including cancelling an entire season (2004-05) and yet they still watch hockey. Some didn’t have an answer to that while others quickly thought of lame excuses.

                When the strike ended on April 2, 1995, many fans refused to go to the games or even watch them on TV, thinking it would be some kind of payback to the greedy ballplayers and their owners. I wasn’t one of them. I welcomed the game back with open arms because, well—I love baseball.

                The game survives. There have countless times over the years when something or other was thought to be the ruin of baseball.

                As an example, there was the Black Sox scandal of 1919 when eight members of the Chicago White Sox were accused of purposely losing the World Series to the Cincinnati Reds after being bribed by gamblers who were looking to fatten their pockets. While the players were found not guilty in court, they were banned from the game forever.

                Baseball had a black eye. But then Babe Ruth starts hitting homeruns and the people forgot about the gambling conspiracy and came to the park to watch the fat guy from Baltimore swat homers.

                Much the same in the mid to late 90s when it was thought the strike was the ruination of the game. But Cal Ripken breaks the record for consecutive games played. Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa gave chase to the home run record. The Yankees started a new dynasty. The Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in 86 years.

                Real baseball fans will not be phased. They will watch the game and savour every moment of it. Even the steroids accusations of the past few years are not enough to kill the game. While the players will come and go, new heroes emerge and old ones retire, the game goes on, and nothing can stop it.