The Nineties: A Book

by Chuck Klosterman

In 1991, arbitrators ruled that Major League Baseball owed the players a combined $280 million for three separate collusion grievances. The secret strategy of collusion was dead. The new transparent strategy was a salary cap. The owners started pushing for a hard salary cap in 1992. They also wanted to decrease the players’ share of MLB revenue from 56 percent to 50 percent and end the practice of salary arbitration.[*] The players believed the threat of a strike was the only way to stop these changes from being forcibly implemented when the collective bargaining agreement expired on the last day of 1994. They set a strike deadline of August 12, 1994, working from the premise that the owners would cave in order to stop the cancellation of the postseason. The players misjudged the owners’ resolve. The owners were completely willing to cancel the World Series, arguing that 19 of the 28 MLB franchises were already losing money. White Sox owner Reinsdorf claimed he was even willing to miss all of the following season, if that’s what it took. He claimed a year without baseball would lose less money than the alternative. The league’s new commissioner, Bud Selig, officially killed the season on September 14. For the first time in ninety years, there was no World Series. That December, the owners implemented a salary cap. That cap was later revoked and replaced with a luxury tax.[*] In January of the following year, President Bill Clinton demanded that the owners and the union reo...