Lords of the Realm Column

In 1994, baseball players may have looked like average Joes and they didn't work in superhuman fashion, but they had the ability to pack a big punch by taking their bats and balls and going home.

The players had two choices. Either succumb to a salary-cap or alienate America of one of its most profit industries.

With baseball being more than just a game anymore, the employee strike -- one of labor’s strongest economic weapons -- became inevitable.

The conflict heavily focused on a potential salary cap, free agency, and arbitration. The players wanted freedom to shop their talent to the high-market teams, but the owners wanted to limit escalating player salaries in order to maximize the profits.

As Lords of the Realm author John Helyar writes, "Still, in some large part, it was the owners' own damned fault. . . . Baseball owners, obsessed with denouncing the overpaid players, never [marketed their players like Michael Jordan]."

In 1994, players’ salaries ranged from $13-to-14 millions for the San Diego Padres (an average of $515,231 per player) to nearly $46 million for the New York Yankees (an average of $1,760,974 per player).

There was no way that players were going to accept a salary cap, the league had already been in the dumps with TV networks, and the big-market small-market battles were over. The answer being a lockdown.

It is possible that the strike could have been avoided, however, if all of the parties had been aware of a potentially impending impasse prior to August. Both would have been more willing to compromise, and the strike probably avoided.

But as former Twins GM Andy MacPhail said in Helyars account, "we're infecting the game with acrimony, and there's no reason for it. Someone has to take the first step. Someone has to have the courage to say, 'Hey this is wrong. We're perverting one of our institutions.'"

More than a first step was taken, affecting baseball forever. When the game turned 'business' and dollars-and-cents captivated the minds of those involved with the 'game,' America was without a World Series for the first time since 1904.

A new labor agreement was reached, in 2002, without a strike or lockout for the first time after multiple attempts, showing that perhaps baseball learned something from the darker days.

Now that baseball has seemed to recover and a salary-cap has not been placed on the game, the focus has become the system of baseball.

Rob Manfred, MLB's chief labor attorney said the experiences of 1994 have changed the relationships between players, ball clubs, and owners for the better, giving the game a face that should reduce the likelihood of a second Armageddon in the game.

However, even with the headway baseball has made since the strike of 1994, it is that year that changed the system of baseball forever, and when there is a system in labor agreements there is potential for it all to reoccur.

Fans, hold on tight because it could come again at any time.