There are some who would say that's a terrible thing. And the game today is really a creation of Marvin Miller. The owners always looked at him as kind of a Svengali who led the players around by their noses. Here was a path that perhaps they could go on to achieve more freedom within their jobs and more salary and more control over their jobs." Steel and really explained to the players, "Here was labor law. Tell us a little bit about how he helped Major League Baseball become the success that it is today despite the efforts of the men who owned the ball clubs when he was opposing them. Jeff Katz, AuthorīL: Unless I’m misreading it, your book has a hero, and that hero is Marvin Miller. But baseball has its orthodoxy and commissioners tend to get in. Given my druthers, I'd rather see Marvin Miller as a Hall of Famer than Bowie Kuhn. So we missed kind of an immediate breaking of the record. The strike hits two days later, but when the season resumes on the first full day of play, Aug. 10, Rose breaks the record. He tied it on the eve of the strike, which led to this sad scene of 3,631 balloons let loose over Veteran Stadium in Philadelphia, the record just within reach. Pete Rose was on a quest to tie, and then break, Stan Musial's all-time National League hit record. Missing a solid block of the middle of the season deprived all of us of seeing how a full year of Fernando would have worked out. Through a series of injuries to some of the veteran starters, he pitched Opening Day at Dodgers Stadium, shut out the Astros and went into a remarkable string of shutouts, five in his first seven games. He had been called up at the end of 1980 by the Dodgers, pitched extremely well and was slated to be a starting pitcher in '81. JK: Well, as you say, Fernando Valenzuela came out of, if not nowhere, almost nowhere. What did MLB lose from a purely baseball standpoint at the strike? With that sole issue to be discussed, it was head on into a strike of 1981.īL: The 1981 season, before it had been interrupted, had been terrific, featuring the dominance of Dodgers ace Fernando Valenzuela, Pete Rose chasing Stan Musial’s National League hits record. In 1980, as I say, the strike was averted with free agency compensation left on the table. And realizing they couldn't control themselves, tried to collectively bargain a way into controlling themselves, which was in effect to make free agency into a trade. The owners had been trying to kill free agency, which the players had been granted at the end of 1975, which in effect gave them the same rights that we all have: you can work wherever you want to in your industry.īut the owners started throwing money around in ways that was quite shocking to themselves, as well as the players. JK: What led directly to it actually culminated in 1980 when the strike was narrowly averted. It also featured the phenomenon of Fernando Valenzuela, among other attractions, which is perhaps why Jeff Katz, the Mayor of Cooperstown, New York, decided to write " Split Season: 1981." Bill Littlefield spoke with the author.īL: Describe briefly the series of events that led to the work stoppage back in 1981. That would come in 1994, when there was a work stoppage and no World Series.īut the 1981 baseball season was the first season to be interrupted by a strike. It was not the worst of times for baseball fans. Due to the strike, the game was cancelled. Facebook Email On this June day in 1981, there was supposed to be a Chicago Cubs baseball game.
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