In March of 1995 after almost 18 months of continuous labor strife and a walk out by the Players Union, MLB owners were ready to open spring training with replacement players or scabs. Almost every owner in baseball except for Peter Angelos of the Baltimore Orioles was ready to put minor leaguers who crossed the picket line or "scabs" into major league uniforms for a drastically reduced salary. A few weeks before opening day was to begin, several star players were pressing their union leaders to settle matters with the owners agreeing to a provisional or "soft" salary cap as was used in the NBA. Well Politics got involved and President Clinton appointed Sonja Sotamayor to rule that the owners had bargained in bad faith and that the previous labor agreement would stand. What if CLinton had kept his nose out of the matter? Would the players have caved into a hard cap and thus made it difficult for the large market teams like Atlanta, New York and Cleveland to dominate as long as they did, not to mention alleviate the great divide between large and small market teams?