Wednesday of this week marked a day that all baseball fans would like to have seen never happen. At midnight on August 11, 1994 Major League Baseball players went on strike, having been unable to come to an agreement with owners over fiscal concerns. Both sides were inflexible during the debacle that would eventually lead to a situation that had been unheard of before – a MLB season would be interrupted by a strike with no World Series played and no champion officially crowned. Team owners insisted that over half of the (then) 28 teams were losing money while the players refused to listen, saying that the owners were lying and that they were really trying to reduce their salaries and also break the union. On September 14 the unthinkable happened; the baseball season was officially called to an end and fans everywhere began wondering if there would be a 1995 season…some of the more fickle fans declared “Who cares?”
Well, baseball resumed play the next season with some changes, along with much grumbling still continuing among (and between) owners, players and fans. But the biggest change that occurred in 1995 wasn’t just the face of baseball – the Montreal Expos entered into a purgatory that would ultimately cause their demise. On August 12 of ‘94, the day the players’ strike began, the Expos were sitting at 74-40, an unbelievable 34 games above .500 and first place in the National League by 12 games! Manager Felipe Alou had a 25 man squad of players whose average age was 26. Sean Berry, the third baseman, was the team’s ’seasoned’ veteran at 28; starting pitcher Jeff Fassero (31) & reserve 1B Randy Milligan (32) were the only players over 30. There were seven players who had double digit figures in stolen bases; outfielders Moises Alou & Larry Walker were having MVP caliber seasons and the starting rotation – which featured a recent acquisition from the Dodgers, Pedro Martinez – were 50-22. Relievers John Wetteland & Mel Rojas were at their peaks with Wetteland posting 25 saves and Rojas 16. This was a team that by all indications was a very serious contender for the World Series title.
By the beginning of the next season the Expos would experience a makeover that would change their fortunes for the worse. Much worse. They finished the ‘95 season eight games under .500 and had only four remaining starting lineup players and two of the five starting pitchers from their previous year. They rebounded in 1996 by finishing 14 games over .500, coming within two games of the Wild Card berth. It would be their last hurrah. Beginning in 1997 the team began to get worse season in and season out and basically become a joke. Eventually they shut the doors forever in Montreal and moved the franchise to Washington D.C. where, as we all know, it has not done much better.
Would the Expos have gone onto become the world champs in ‘94 if the season hadn’t ended? I say very likely, others would argue with me. But as for those people who continue to say that baseball would have been saved in Montreal if the Expos had won a World Series during the ‘94 season, well, they are simply crazy. Even during that phenomenal year they finished 11th out of 14 teams for attendance – and it didn’t get better either. There simply wasn’t enough interest in the sport of baseball in that area and I doubt seriously that there would have been a surge in attendance because of a championship. Instead, I’d say that if the Expos had moved the franchise to Washington at the end of the ‘94 season they would likely have been able to retain all those players from that season under contract and not been forced to hold routine ‘fire sales’ in the following years to cut payroll. But that’s just my two cents worth…
Filed under: Baseball - General
