DBWI: 1994 MLB strike cancels World Series

Back in the 1994 season, Major League Baseball was in serious danger of losing the last two-plus months of the first season under the new wild-card format, with the possibility of forfeiting the '94 Series and even a chunk of the '95 season. But an 11th-hour deal on the morning of August 12, 1994 saved baseball, and there has been relative labor peace since that episode.

Killing the '94 season, of course, means killing the dominant run by the Expos in the mid-90s and a few of those classic NLCS showdowns between them and the Braves. What would the game be like without that Expos-Braves blood feud? I'm just looking through some old clips of the first few on-field brawls, especially that one in '96 where even Felipe Alou and Bobby Cox got into a fistfight.

I mean, it got so crazy that the feud spilled over into hockey after the Thrashers entered the league. I have to wonder if hockey would have even caught on in Atlanta without that feud against the Habs, all triggered by that epic Thrashers run in 2002 up to and including a big win over the Habs. I mean, that Thrashers team didn't do squat against the Red Wings in the Final, but still, what a fun team to watch.
 
I am shocked that any NHL team can succeed south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Don't forget that the Expos won 4 World Series titles in 1994, 1997, 2001 and 2003. If they did not have such success, would they have moved out of Canada?
 
We wouldn't have seen how well Don Mattingly could play at the World Series level. He retired after that season after the Yankees fell just short of another World Championship. With a shortened season in 1994, he might have stuck around for another season, but they got eliminated in the playoffs pretty quickly in 1995 and I don't think he would have lasted until 1996.
 
I am shocked that any NHL team can succeed south of the Mason-Dixon line.

Don't forget that the Expos won 4 World Series titles in 1994, 1997, 2001 and 2003. If they did not have such success, would they have moved out of Canada?

Maybe they would move to Washington DC and give America's capital a team.
 
Maybe they would move to Washington DC and give America's capital a team.

Dunno, DC was MLB's version of LA until the Marlins and Devil Rays tripped over themselves to move there before 2008. The Marlins ended up going back to Miami with their tail between their legs while the D-Rays ended up becoming the Washington Nationals. Kind of funny in hindsight after Jeffrey Loria tried to get a ballpark out of Miami and ended up going nowhere while he Dolphins got that shiny new stadium, so Loria can watch them defend their Super Bowl title from his shitty luxury suite in the old Dolphin Stadium while Joe Maddon has the Nationals in the World Series. I wonder if he can lead them past Kershaw and the Dodgers.
 
OOC: I checked to see if the Washington team would still be named the "Nationals", instead of the "Senators", if it was an American League team. It would have. According to the Wikipedia article on the Nationals, they were forced to take that name instead of the Senators due to a hard to understand political issue and it had nothing to do with being in a different league from the two Senators teams. I do find it reasonable that the Devil Rays would have re-located to Washington, the other candidates being the Marlins and the As.
 
But since the labor strife was settled before the lockout actually happened, the Expos were able to move from Olympic Stadium to their own dedicated ballpark, Molson Park, complete with a retractable roof like Rogers SkyDome in Toronto. Unlike the Rogers SkyDome, Molson Park had a more "retro" look, thanks to the fact it was designed by the same people who designed Camden Yards, the Ballpark at Arlington, and AT&T Field in San Francisco.
 
But since the labor strife was settled before the lockout actually happened, the Expos were able to move from Olympic Stadium to their own dedicated ballpark, Molson Park, complete with a retractable roof like Rogers SkyDome in Toronto. Unlike the Rogers SkyDome, Molson Park had a more "retro" look, thanks to the fact it was designed by the same people who designed Camden Yards, the Ballpark at Arlington, and AT&T Field in San Francisco.

Yeah, and it costs twice as much as an equivalent ticket to the Habs games and it's even pricier than the new Yankee Stadium. Of course, the Expos are looking good enough to return to their former glory next season, so it might be worth a look.

Maybe they would move to Washington DC and give America's capital a team.

Heh heh, a universe where the Expos ARE the Nationals. Wonder if that will come up if the prognosticators are right about Expos-Nationals being "next year's World Series." Of course, they thought the Cubs had a shot with all that "Back to the Future" nonsense last year and anyone with a brain knew they were out of it by May.
 
OOC: This is very interesting. As I recall, the Jays were doing well that year, too. I thought we had a shot at an all-Canadian World Series.
 
OOC: This is very interesting. As I recall, the Jays were doing well that year, too. I thought we had a shot at an all-Canadian World Series.

OOC: The Jays finished the shortened season 16 games out of first and 8.5 back of Cleveland for the Wild Card. The chances of Canada winning three in a row were strong, but barring lightning in a bottle, the Yankees or Orioles are winning that division and the loser slugs it out with whoever doesn't win it from the Central.

IC: Yeah, the Jays made a good run of it at the end, and it looked like they tried to hold it together for a few years after that, but the bottom had to fall out sooner or later. That division belonged to the Yankees for years to come, and those Yanks-Indians series were almost as contentious as those in the NL East. To think baseball was dominated by those four teams for so long. Nothing like how wide-open it is now. I mean, the Royals winning a World Series? No way should that ever happen.
 
The big difference is that Tony Gwynn never would have ended the season with a .407 batting average, which will never be repeated. If the strike occurred, he would have ended with a .394 average, great but not as impressive.
 
That is Impossible unless something awful happen and the whole MLB and MLBPA goes pretty sour and maybe violent, the players have agree they would play a 'shortened post season, aka just eliminations games till a best of 3 world series' in the event the negotiations would turn sour(who didn't happen and all parties goes what they wanted), remember not even the wars and strike shortened season stoped the world series
 
Don't forget Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants hitting 62 Home Runs...with #62 coming on the last day of the season to break Roger Maris' record. (OOC: he was on track to do just that)
 
Don't forget Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants hitting 62 Home Runs...with #62 coming on the last day of the season to break Roger Maris' record. (OOC: he was on track to do just that)

Yeah, that home run chase was pretty epic, not like the one a few years later when Sammy Sosa beat his record only to have everyone jump down his throat for using creatine. And anyway, the sizzle went out of that race when Mark McGwire went down with a knee injury in August. Sosa and Bonds nothing - Matt Williams is the home run king, and no one's touching #62 the way the game is played now.
 
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