Editor’s note: This article was written by Ted Keith and first appeared in Sports Business Journal , the industry’s leading source of sports business news, events and data. Some of the memories have faded now. Thirty years later, Donald Fehr doesn’t remember exactly how he spent the final moments of the 1994 Major League Baseball season, which ended on Aug.
12 when the players began a strike that ultimately led, one month later, to the only cancellation of the playoffs and World Series. “I would have been doing three things and not doing a fourth, which was sleeping,” said Fehr, at the time the executive director of the MLB Players Association. “You were talking to players constantly, you did some discussion with the media and you basically hoped that matters could be focused in a way that would allow the matter to be resolved.
” Other recollections are as firm as ever. Asked what his thoughts were as the strike date approached, Fehr answered without hesitation: “Inevitability.” Indeed, the looming threat of a strike permeated what had been a brilliant season to that point.
The Padres’ Tony Gwynn had a .394 batting average and the chance at baseball’s first .400 season since Ted Williams in 1941.
The Giants’ Matt Williams was on pace to hit 61 home runs. The New York Yankees were poised to return to the postseason for the first time in 13 years. Labor strife in baseball was certainly nothing new.
From 1972 to 1990, baseball endured four strikes and thre.