Colorado Rockies: What to learn from the 1994-95 strike for the return of baseball in 2020

Before this year, the last time that we didn’t have Colorado Rockies baseball in summer was in 1994.

We have passed the two-month mark on Colorado Rockies regular-season games being canceled/postponed in 2020 due to the shutdown to COVID-19. While it came under different circumstances, there are some similarities between this shutdown and the 1994-95 players’ strike.

As of the publication of this article, it looks like that anywhere from 48 to 112 games will be shaved off of the 2020 schedule depending on whether the player’s plan or owner’s plan is passed or if a middle ground is reached or if there is a season at all. The reason why that is still up in the air is the distrust of MLB owners and the players.

In the summer of 1994, the season came to a screeching halt on August 11 as the players went on strike after things came to a head during the previous offseason and the start of the 1994 season.

It all started with the ouster of MLB commissioner Fay Vincent in September 1992. He was forced to resign by the MLB owners after he claimed that the MLB owners colluded to reduce free-agent contracts in the mid- to late-1980s. He described the situation years later when he said that Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers owners Jerry Reinsdorf and Bud Selig committed a “$280 million theft” when they “rigged the signing of free agents.”

The other MLB owners appointed Selig himself as the acting commissioner, a title that he would hold until July 1998, when the “acting” term was removed.

As Vincent later described, their actions in the 1980s “polluted labor relations in baseball ever since.” On December 31, 1993, the Collective Bargaining Agreement between the two sides expired with no new deal in place. In January of 1994, the MLB owners passed a revenue-sharing plan with a player salary cap but the MLBPA adamantly opposed it, as you may expect.

While playing with no CBA, in June 1994, the owners submitted a new proposal to the MLBPA in which players would become a free agent after just four seasons (instead of six), However, arbitration would be eliminated and in the first two years of free agency, if the retaining owner matched an offer from another MLB owner for a player in free agency, they automatically would keep the player. The MLBPA rejected the offer in July and set August 12 as the day to strike.

Things got so bad that President Bill Clinton had to bring in a federal arbitrator in and talks between the sides still weren’t resolved and later, future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled in a New York district court that the owners were in the wrong and MLB return under its previous CBA until a new one could be agreed upon, which it was for the 1997 season.

As a result of the strike, the Colorado Rockies had 63 games wiped out between the two seasons and the entire 1994 playoffs were canceled.

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Flash forward to 2020 and while it’s not a player’s strike, the owners and players are the ones that are in control of whether or not baseball returns and, if so, how many games there will be.

If there is no season, baseball may receive a similar backlash that they did in 1995 when attendance at games dropped 20 percent across the league from an average attendance of 31,240 to 25,048. MLB would not surpass its 1994 attendance average until 2006. Considering the way that MLB attendance is going currently, MLB can’t afford another 20 percent drop as it has gone down nearly every season since 2008.

If the season were to be canceled and the 2021 average attendance would drop at the same percentage rate as it did between 1994 and 1995, the average MLB attendance would be 22,606. MLB attendance has not been that low since 1986. Also, MLB would not be getting a 39 rating (or between 55-60 million viewers) in Game 7 of the World Series, as they did in Game 7 in 1986. As it is, 2019’s Game 7 was the least-watched Game 7 in MLB history, with a rating of 13.1 and the third-lowest ratings for a World Series ever.

The two sides also will also have to come up with a new CBA deal after the 2021 season so this negotiation for a return in 2020 could have a huge impact on negotiations next year.

Thankfully, at least as of now, the relationship between the two sides seems to be better than it was more than a quarter century ago so, hopefully, they can use it to but their differences aside and return to baseball in the coming weeks.