alternatehistory.com

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.
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