 |
| Buck Showalter was just 38 years old managing the 1994 New York Yankees |
On August 12th, 1994, exactly 20 years ago today, a work stoppage occurred in the form of a strike action called by the Major League Baseball Players Association in response to ongoing labor problems with the MLB franchise owners. The strike would last the rest of the '94 season, resulting in inconclusive division races and the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series.
Many people believe that the entity most injured as a result of the 1994 strike was the Montreal Expos, as well as their fans. The Expos led all of baseball with a 74-40 record at the time, and led the N.L. East by 6 games over the 2nd place Atlanta Braves. Many of these same folks believe that the Expos would have won the World Series that year, and perhaps would still be in Montreal today. Instead, that franchise would see attendance plummet for a decade before moving to become the Washington Nationals.
But don't count me among them. The Expos, never having won anything to that point, would have needed to hold their lead over the Braves for another month and a half. I believe that a good case can be made that instead of Montreal in the World Series, we instead would have witnessed what became the 1996 Series, only a couple of years earlier, between the Atlanta Braves and the New York Yankees.
