Total Baseball (1994 Edition)/Total_Baseball_1994_Edition_Creative_Multimedia_1994.iso/dp/0000/00008.txt

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$Unique_ID{BAS00008}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{The History of Major League Baseball:  Part 4}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{
Voigt, David Q.}
$Subject{History Histories Baseball Major League Leagues Majors eighties
nineties Reagan Future}
$Log{}

Total Baseball:  The History


The History of Major League Baseball:  Part 4

David Q. Voigt


Baseball's Embattled Decade, 1981-1990

     The conservative mood that gripped the nation in the late 1970s also held
sway during these years and helped to catapult Ronald Reagan to landslide
victories in the presidential elections of 1980 and 1984. Indeed, ex-movie
actor Reagan was no stranger to baseball fans, many of whom saw him play the
role of ex-pitching great Grover Cleveland Alexander on the silver screen. And
now, as an avowed conservative, President Reagan sought to divert the nation's
economy toward a free-enterprise course by such tactics as cutting federal
taxes and reducing federal domestic spending programs. At the same time
Reagan advocated a powerful national defense posture aimed at combating the
spread of international communism.
     But Reagan's first term was darkened by an economic recession which
contributed to high unemployment. Especially hard hit by unemployment were
minorities and blue-collar workers in declining industries. Among the
declining industries were such former bellwether industries as steel and
mining, whose sagging production was attributed to foreign competition.
However, the American economy in the main continued to shift from its former
heavy-industrial base to its present emphasis on high technology and
information and services production.
     Nevertheless, before Reagan's first term ended, such factors as federal
tax cuts and falling inflation and interest rates spurred an economic recovery
which continued into 1987. The boomlet reduced unemployment, but for most
workers wage increases were small, and some 20 million Americans still
remained at or near the poverty level in 1987. Indeed, some critics faulted
Reagan's economic policies for favoring the well-to-do, whose ranks by 1987
included a million millionaires and a score of billionaires among a population
of 240 million.
     But prospects for continuing affluence dimmed as the year 1987 closed
amidst fears of an impending recession. In October the nation's burgeoning
national debt (estimated at $2.6 trillion) and a chronic foreign-trade
imbalance triggered financial panics in domestic and foreign stock markets.
Aggravated by the festering Iran-Contra scandal and the naval confrontation
with Iran in the Persian Gulf, the economic crisis boded ill for the Reagan
Administration and for the nation's future.
     Moreover, other menacing problems clouded the nation's future. Among
them was the epidemic of drug abuse which defied efforts at punitive control.
According to a 1985 estimate, the multibillion-dollar illegal drug industry
was being supported by 20 million American consumers. Included were scores of
professional athletes who confronted their officials with the knotty problem
of disciplining abusers without violating their civil rights.
     And yet for all the sobering national problems, most Americans of these
years enjoyed moderately prosperous lifestyles. For this accomplishment, the
two-paycheck family trend was largely responsible. By 1987 working women,
whose ranks included most wives, accounted for more than half of the American
labor force. Buoyed by the additional income, most Americans continued to
spend lavishly on leisure and recreational activities. According to one
report, Americans in 1987 were spending well over $50 billion a year on
gambling, sports betting, and physical activities alone. And among the host
of available leisure activities, television viewing, especially televised
sports programs, maintained a leading position.
     Certainly America's continuing infatuation with major sports was a
blessing for baseball as revenues from live attendance and television
continued to grow at a record-setting pace. At the same time, however,
spiraling player salaries pitted players against owners in a series of pitched
battles on the labor front.
     Indeed, embattled relations between players and owners was a leitmotif of
this era. In 1981 the failure of owners and players to agree on a new labor
contract triggered a crippling baseball strike--the worst in the history of
major league baseball since the 1890 debacle. A major bone of contention was
the owners' demand that a club receive a veteran player as compensation for
losing a player in one of the annual re-entry drafts. When the deadline for
an agreement expired with no compromise, the players struck on June 11, 1981.
Once the strike began, it lasted some fifty days and wiped out a third of the
season's playing schedule. The strike cost the united players at least $30
million in lost salaries, and the owners lost an estimated $116 million in
revenues. However, the owners were partly compensated by $50 million in
strike insurance. On the last day of July, a compromise ended the great
player strike. The owners won their point on the player compensation issue,
but they had to settle for an indirect approach. Thus when a team lost a
player in a re-entry draft, the team got to choose a veteran player from a
pool of surplus players provided by all major league teams. For their part,
the players also successfully fended off the owners' demand for a ceiling on
salaries. Agreement on these and lesser issues produced a fifth Basic
Agreement, which ran through the season of 1984. The eleventh-hour agreement
saved what was left of the 1981 season, but the salvage format devised by
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn drew much criticism. Kuhn's plan called for a
split-season campaign, a format which had been tried and discarded as
unsatisfactory in 1892. Under Kuhn's scheme, the first-half winners were
those teams which led their divisions at the time of the June 11 player
walkout. The second-half winners would be the teams that led the divisions at
the close of the campaign after the resumption of play in August. By ruling
first-half winners ineligible to repeat as champions, Kuhn's plan of
scheduling a round of playoffs to decide the divisional championships in each
league was assured. Thus a separate best-of-five playoff series was scheduled
to settle first the matter of the 1981 divisional championships. Thereafter,
the winners engaged in the usual best-of-five game series to determine the
champions of each league. Although the format worked as planned, it was
faulted for producing lackadaisical play on the part of three of the four
first-half winners and for reducing attendance in the second half of what
writer Red Smith called "the dishonest season.'
     Nor did the great strike of 1981 end the tensions between the embattled
players and owners. When the fifth Basic Agreement expired at the end of 1984
with no agreement in place, a new strike threat loomed in 1985. With salaries
continuing their upward spiral, averaging $363,000 in 1984 with 36 players
paid at least a million dollars that year, the owners determined to arrest the
trend. Correctly zeroing in on salary arbitration as the cause of runaway
salaries, the owners demanded that a player wait more than the current
two-year period before becoming eligible for salary arbitration. In addition,
the owners renewed their demand for a ceiling on salaries. Naturally the
players resisted, and when no agreement was reached, the players struck on
August 6, 1985. But this time the walkout lasted only two days; obviously
neither side wanted a repeat of the 1981 ordeal. Following the resumption of
negotiations, a sixth Basic Agreement was promulgated. The new contract
compromised on the major issues. For their part, the owners failed to get a
salary ceiling, but the players agreed to wait three years instead of two to
become eligible for salary arbitration. The players won increased pension
benefits, which now would pay a retired veteran with ten years of major league
service an annual pension of $91,000!  And the owners also won their demand to
increase the popular League Championship Series playoffs to a
best-of-seven-games format beginning with the 1985 season.
     Still, the new four-year Basic Agreement failed to end the hostilities
between players and owners. As salaries continued to soar, the owners
unilaterally cut team player rosters to twenty-four men and proceeded to
boycott the re-entry drafts of 1985-1987. Despite the presence of veteran
stars on the auction blocks in those years, there were no bidders. In
retaliation, the Players Association charged collusion and filed separate
grievances for each of the two boycotted drafts. In September 1987 arbiter
Thomas Roberts ruled in favor of the players in the first of those suits, that
of 1985. Shortly thereafter, arbiter George Nicolau ruled against the owners
in the 1986 and 1987 cases of alleged grievances. The rulings awarded damages
of $280 million to the players involved. As a result the
chastened owners engaged in open bidding in the re-entry markets of 1988 and
1989. But the Players Association insisted on further collusion protection,
which became part of the seventh Basic Agreement that was negotiated after the
1990 lockout. A proviso in that agreement imposed triple damages for any
repetition of owner collusion in the signing of free agents. Still, whatever
the outcome of this impending struggle, the players of this era were obvious
winners on the salary front. In 1982, the year after the great strike,
salaries averaged $250,000. Two years later the average salary climbed to
$330,000, almost the same as that of the highest-paid manager, Tom Lasorda of
the Dodgers. Then in 1986 the average salary peaked at $412,000 before
falling slightly to $410,000 in 1987. The decrease was due in part to teams
releasing veteran players and calling up minor leaguers, some of whom could be
paid the minimum salary of $62,500. But the decrease was a minor one as
annual payrolls for major league clubs in 1987 topped $295 million. Of
course, payrolls varied from team to team; in 1987 the Yankee payroll of $18.5
million topped all others, while the $5.6 million payroll of the Seattle
Mariners was the lowest of the twenty-six teams.
     Average figures also failed to tell the full story of player gains of
this era. Boosting average salary figures were the growing number of
million-dollar-a-year players. In 1984 there were twenty; in 1985,
thirty-six; in 1986, fifty-eight; and in 1987, fifty-seven. Among these
plutocrats were a number of $2-million-a-year men, including slugger Mike
Schmidt of the Phillies. In signing a two-year contract late in 1987, Schmidt
successfully bucked the rumored attempt by owners to hold salaries at $2
million. In Schmidt's words, "I wanted the salary to read $2.25 million
probably more for negotiating reasons for my fellow players. . . . I want my
fellow players to know that's what top dollar is now.' Small wonder then that
salaries of baseball players now exceeded those of any rival team sports in
America.
     In defense of these astronomical player salaries, one could cite major
league baseball's continuing prosperity. In this era, annual attendance at
major league games repeatedly set new records. After the jarring strike of
1981 limited attendance to 22 million, attendance rebounded to a record 45
million the following year. And despite the national recession, that record
fell in 1983. And, after falling by a mere 800,000 in 1984, attendance
continued upward. In 1986 annual attendance totaled 47,500,000 and in 1987 it
topped 52 million. As in every year since its mini-expansion in 1977, the AL
led in attendance, and in 1987 the AL outdrew the NL by 2.5 million. But as
always, attendance was unevenly distributed among the clubs. Until 1987 only
the Dodgers had topped the 3 million mark in annual attendance, which they did
on several occasions, but that year the NL Mets and Cardinals also cracked
that barrier. Meanwhile, no AL team had broken the 3 million attendance
barrier, but in 1987 the Toronto Blue Jays neared the mark, and in 1988 the
Twins surpassed it. Moreover, the attendance picture was brightening for
teams located in older cities like Chicago, Boston, New York, San Francisco,
Cleveland, St. Louis, and Milwaukee, where demographic reports showed a
reversal of population losses.
     However, revenues from soaring attendance alone could not have supported
the astonishing salaries of this era. What made the difference was television
revenue, which some critics blamed for stimulating the trend by casting
ballplayers in the company of highly paid TV celebrities. Be that as it may,
in 1983 major league officials negotiated a $1.1 billion, six-year network
television contract. When the contract took effect in 1984, revenues from
network and local TV sources exceeded those of ticket sales. Although
revenues from local TV contracts tended to favor teams that were located in
the more lucrative local TV markets, the network TV contract in its final year
of 1989 promised a hefty $230 million for all clubs to divide. Nevertheless,
it was too soon to write finis to the old adage that "at the gate is
baseball's fate.' In 1985 a reported decline in network TV advertising sales
raised the specter that the overexposure of televised sports programs would
reverse the trend. Should ratings of televised sports programs decline
further, the amount of revenue from network TV would be further reduced.
     At this time critics blamed drug abuse by players for lessening the
popularity of major sports. But surprisingly baseball's popularity was little
affected by revelations of drug abuse by players of this era. In 1980
director Ken Moffett of the Players Association admitted that as many as 40
percent of major league players might be drug abusers. In 1983 the problem
reached serious proportions when three Kansas City Royals players were
sentenced to jail terms as convicted users. That same year a Dodger pitcher
was suspended, and in 1985 a San Diego Padres player was traded for similar
offenses. And in 1985 baseball's public image was further tarnished by
revelations coming from two Pittsburgh court trials of drug sellers. The
testimony named seventeen players as drug users. Although these revelations
had no discernible impact on the game's popularity, Commissioner Peter
Ueberroth chose to treat the matter as a major scandal. But the
commissioner's attempt to force all players to submit to periodic drug tests
ran afoul of the Players Association, which insisted that the issue be
addressed through collective-bargaining procedures. Still, Ueberroth
suspended the accused players and, as a condition for reinstatement, forced
each player to donate up to 10 percent of his salary to charities and to
engage in antidrug campaigns. After ruling on this matter, Ueberroth
announced at the opening of the 1986 season that the drug problem in baseball
was solved. But this face-saving claim ignored the reality of the national
epidemic of drug abuse and was mocked by the failure of President Reagan's
vaunted 1986 antidrug crusade. Indeed, it is most unlikely that the game has
been purged of drug abuse, and the problem of devising a punitive policy
continued to be an unresolved issue facing the game as it entered the decade
of the 1990s.
     That major league baseball's popularity was so little troubled by drug
scandals, strikes, soaring salaries, or even the economic recession owed much
to the dazzling style of play. Indeed, fans of this era witnessed the
apotheosis of the big-bang offensives. In the AL, where sluggers consistently
outhomered NL swingers by wide margins, homer records fell like sheaves. Over
this seven-year span AL sluggers averaged 2,000 homers a year, with
record-breaking seasons succeeding each other over the years 1985-1987. In
1985 AL sluggers bashed 2,178; in 1986, 2,240; and in 1987, a gargantuan 2,634
homers were struck. What's more, NL sluggers in 1987 weighed in with 1,824
homers to break their league's 1970 record.
     Major league baseball's 1987 cannonade saw twenty-eight players hit 30 or
more homers, including twenty American leaguers. Rookie Mark McGwire of the
Oakland Athletics led the AL with 49--an all-time seasonal mark by a yearling,
the feat won McGwire a unanimous vote for Rookie of the Year honors.
Meanwhile, Andre Dawson of the Cubs matched McGwire's output and won the NL
MVP Award despite his team's last-place finish in the NL East. Among the most
consistent sluggers of this era, Mike Schmidt of the Phillies led NL sluggers
four times, while Dale Murphy of the Braves twice topped the league. By the
end of the 1988 season, Schmidt's total of 542 homers ranked him with the all-
time leading clouters and following his retirement early in the 1989 season,
Schmidt was named Player of the Decade by The Sporting News. And at the end
of the 1987 season, Reggie Jackson retired from the AL wars with a lifetime
total of 563 homers. Jackson's passing from the game left a lonesome gap in
AL power circles which young Goliaths like McGwire, Pete Incaviglia, Jose
Canseco, George Bell, and Jesse Barfield seemed destined to fill.
     But if this era's homer production was unprecedented, seasonal batting
achievements were ordinary. Thanks to its designated hitter rule, AL batters
annually surpassed NL hitters, with seasonal AL averages topping .260 while
those of the NL hovered around the .255 mark. In the NL, black stars
continued their batting leadership. Black stars won all of the NL batting
titles of this era, with veteran Bill Madlock of the Pirates capturing a pair
and young Tony Gwynn of the Padres winning three. It was otherwise in the AL,
where a single dominating hitter, third baseman Wade Boggs of the Red Sox,
captured four batting titles. An ideal leadoff hitter, the lefty-swinging
Boggs batted .349 as a rookie in 1982. Over the next five seasons Boggs
averaged a Cobbian .368. Moreover, in 1987 Boggs belted 24 homers to triple
his best seasonal homer output thus far. In 1989, he became the first AL
player to post seven consecutive 200-hit seasons.
     Among the memorable batting feats of this era, Pete Rose gained
immortality on September 4, 1985, when the Cincinnati player-manager's single
off pitcher Eric Show of the Padres broke Cobb's lifetime record of 4,191
hits. To be sure, Rose needed 2,300 more at bats than Cobb did to turn the
trick, but the forty-four-year-old sparkplug put his feat into proper
perspective when he said, "I might not be the best player, but I got the most
hits.' Indeed, and when Rose retired from active play at the end of the 1986
season, he had extended the total hit record to 4,256. While nothing touched
Rose's accomplishment, the explosive 1987 season saw Don Mattingly of the
Yankees match Dale Long's feat of homering in eight consecutive games, while
Paul Molitor of the Brewers hit safely in 39 consecutive games, and rookie
catcher Benito Santiago of the Padres hit safely in 34. Santiago's feat won
for him NL Rookie of the Year honors.
     In the offensive category of stolen bases, NL speedsters perennially
topped their AL counterparts. At this time the newly crowned prince of
thieves was outfielder Vince Coleman of the Cardinals. In 1985 Coleman set a
rookie record with 110 steals, and at the end of the 1987 season he became the
first player ever to swipe 100 or more bases in three consecutive seasons.
However, Coleman had yet to top the latest seasonal record of 130 thefts, set
by outfielder Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics in 1982. Indeed, in
1990 Henderson broke Ty Cobb's AL record for the most steals, zipped by the
mark of Sliding Billy Hamilton, and zeroed in on Lou Brock's major league
record.
     Not surprisingly the offensive pyrotechnics of these years had pundits
wondering whatever had happened to pitching. Indeed, seasonal ERAs skyrocketed
in both leagues, with the AL average well above 4.00 and that of the NL above
3.70. Of course this meant that the always volatile pitching-batting
equilibrium was again out of whack. For the latest imbalance, observers
proffered such explanations as livelier balls, narrowed strike zones,
pitchers' fears of retaliation if they threw inside to batters, pitchers
relying too much on breaking pitches, and managers relying more on their
bullpen and demanding too little of their starters. Indeed, the numbers of
complete games pitched by starting pitchers declined as managers relied more
on specialized relief pitchers. Among the bullpen specialists, the most
celebrated continued to be the firemen who were counted to come on late in a
game to save a victory. Among the best were Dan Quisenberry, Goose Gossage,
Bruce Sutter, Todd Worrell, Dave Righetti, Gene Garber (who notched his 200th
career save in 1987), and Lee Smith, who set a record by recording 30 or more
saves in three consecutive seasons.
     Still, it seemed evident that more than yeomanlike relief work was needed
to restore pitching to a proper balance with hitting. For now, managers
complained of poorly trained pitchers, while pitchers blamed prevailing rules
for favoring batters. Nor was it surprising that some pitchers were smuggling
in illegal scuffed-ball and spitball deliveries.
     However, good pitchers were by no means extinct. In this era Nolan Ryan
hurled a record-setting fifth no-hitter in 1981. And at the end of the 1988
season, the forty-one-year-old fireballer, who had lost little of his earlier
velocity, extended his all-time leading strikeout total to 4,775 whiffs.
Indeed, in 1987 Ryan's 270 strikeouts led the NL, and his 2.76 ERA hardly
justified his 816 won-loss record. In 1989, the forty-two-year-old Ryan fanned
301 batters and topped the 5000 mark in In strikeouts. 1990 the venerable
fireballer hurled a sixth no-hitter to break his earlier record of five, and
in 1991 he hurled his seventh. Among the promising younger pitchers, Dwight
Gooden of the Mets blazed his way to a 244, 1.53 ERA, with 268 strikeouts in
1985. And the following year Roger Clemens of the Red Sox also went 244 to
become the first starting pitcher in fifteen years to win the AL MVP Award.
Naturally Clemens also won the Cy Young Award that year, and when the ace went
209 in 1987, despite early-season ineffectiveness caused by his salary
holdout, Clemens won a second Cy Young Award. By winning two straight, Clemens
joined the select company of Sandy Koufax, Denny McLain, and Jim Palmer as the
only pitchers to win back-to-back Cy Young Awards. And in 1988 Orel
Hershiser's performance from August through October was unprecedented.

Recent Campaigns:  The AL, 1981-1990

     The long unrealized dream of an era of competitive balance now became
something of a reality in the AL, as each of the first seven campaigns
produced a new league champion. Moreover, eleven different teams won
divisional titles in these years. However, in the West the Oakland Athletics
won three divisional championships and captured consecutive league
championships in 1988-1989. And the Tigers, Royals, Red Sox, and Angels each
won a pair of divisional pennants in this era.
     The AL's free-for-all pattern began with the singular campaign of 1981.
When the long player strike gutted the middle of that season, a split-season
format was adopted in hopes of renewing fan support for the arrested campaign.
Under this format, the first half of the season ended when the players walked
out on June 11, and the second half ran from the resumption of play in
mid-August to the end of the regular playing schedule. Because the June 11
strike date had the Yankees leading the Orioles by 2 games in the East, and
the Athletics leading the Rangers by 1 1/2 games in the West, these teams were
declared the first-half winners of their divisions. But when the split-season
plan barred first-half winners from repeating as divisional champs, the
Yankees dawdled to a sixth-place finish in the East's second-half race. Thus
the Milwaukee Brewers won the second-half Eastern race by 1 1/2 games over the
Red Sox. In the West, the Athletics lost the second half to the Royals by 1
game.
     At this point, the split-season script called for a best-of-five-games
playoff series to determine the divisional championships. In the East the
series went the full five games before the Yankees defeated the Brewers, but
in the West the scrappy Athletics swept the Royals. Then in the ensuing
League Championship Series the Yankees swept the Athletics. Although the
Yankees won the 1981 AL pennant, their overall record was bettered by two
other teams. The Yankee victory owed to its pitching staff, whose 2.90 ERA
led the league; starters Ron Guidry and Dave Righetti combined for 19 wins,
and reliever Goose Gossage saved 20 games. As for the Athletics, whose
overall record was the AL's best, they led the league in homers. The
Athletics were led by outfielder Rickey Henderson, who batted .319 and led the
league in stolen bases, and pitcher Steve McCatty, whose 14 wins and 2.32 ERA
led the league. As for the Yankees, their comeuppance came in the World
Series. Matched against the resilient Dodgers, the Yankees took the first two
games, but then were ignominiously swept. And by losing three games in
relief, Yankee pitcher George Frazier added his name to the annals of World
Series goats.
     In the dog-eat-dog competition of the next six AL seasons, the Yankees
failed to win another divisional title. In 1982 the Brewers squeaked to a
1-game win over the Orioles in the East. In winning, the Brewers batted .279
and the team's 216 homers topped the majors, with shortstop Robin Yount
winning MVP honors for his .331-29-114 batting exploits. Outfielder Gorman
Thomas led the league with 39 homers and drove in 112 runs. And infielders
Cecil Cooper (.331-32-121) and Paul Molitor (.302-19-71) complemented Yount's
stickwork. But the pitching was shaky, except for starters Pete Vuckovich and
Mike Caldwell, who combined for 35 victories. Veteran reliever Rollie Fingers
saved 29 games, so the late-season injury that sidelined this mustachioed ace
was a crusher. In the West, the California Angels won a close race by 3 games
over the Royals. A good hitting team, the Angels finished right behind the
Brewers in hitting and homers, and their pitching bettered the Brewers.
Starter Geoff Zahn's 18 wins led the staff. Offensively, a quartet of
expensive recent acquisitions paced the attack, including infielders Rod Carew
(.319) and Doug DeCinces (.301-30-97), and outfielders Fred Lynn (.299) and
Reggie Jackson (39 homers and 102 RBIs). Jackson's 39 homers tied Thomas for
the league leadership, and the veteran drove in 101 runs. When these two
well-matched teams met in LCS play, for a time it seemed likely that Angel
manager Gene Mauch might win his first pennant. The Angels took the first two
games at home, but were swept by the Brewers in Milwaukee. Thus the Brewers
became the first major league team to win an LCS after losing the first two
games. But in World Series play it was the Cardinals who rebounded from a 32
deficit to defeat the Brewers. This latest loss was the fourth in a row by an
AL entry.
     But over the next three seasons, three different AL teams ended the NL
streak by winning world titles. In 1983 the Orioles drove to a 6-game victory
over the runner-up Tigers in the Eastern Division. Pitchers Scott McGregor
(187), Mike Boddicker (168), Storm Davis (137), and reliever Tippy Martinez
(with 21 saves) headed the league's second-best pitching staff. At bat the
Orioles hit .269, and the team's 168 homers led the majors. Shortstop Cal
Ripken, Jr.'s .318-27-102 batting won him MVP honors, while first baseman
Eddie Murray weighed in with .306-33-111 clouting. Meanwhile, in the West the
long-dormant Chicago White Sox stormed to a 20-game victory over the Royals.
In landing their first divisional title, the White Sox drew 2 million fans,
who saw young Ron Kittle win Rookie of the Year honors with his 35 homers and
100 RBIs. Although lacking a .300 hitter, the White Sox got plentiful power
from outfielder Harold Baines (20-99), catcher Carlton Fisk (26-86), and DH
Greg Luzinski (32-95). What's more, the White Sox boasted a pair of 20-game
winners in Cy Young Award winner LaMarr Hoyt (2410) and Rich Dotson (227).
Behind Hoyt, the White Sox won the first LCS game, but the Orioles swept the
next three games to win the pennant. The Orioles then dropped the opening
game of the 1983 World Series at home, but then swept the Phillies to end the
AL's humiliating losing streak.
     The following year another new champion surfaced in the AL East, which
was now being touted as the strongest division in the majors. Riding the
momentum of a 355 breakaway gait, the Detroit Tigers went on to win 104 games,
enough to lap the Toronto Blue Jays by 15 games. It was indeed a vintage year
for manager Sparky Anderson's all-conquering Tigers. Offensively the Tigers
led the league in hitting (.271) and homers (187). Shortstop Alan Trammell
batted .314, and outfielder Kirk Gibson and catcher Lance Parrish combined to
produce 60 homers and 189 RBIs. To top it off, the Tigers also fielded the
league's best pitching staff. Starters Jack Morris, Dan Petry, and Milt
Wilcox turned in 54 victories and reliever Willie Hernandez, a recent
acquisition from the Phillies, saved 32 games. In 32 of his 33 game-saving
situations, Hernandez met the test--an achievement that won him both the Cy
Young and MVP awards. Meanwhile, in the weaker Western Division the Royals
eked a 3-game win over the Angels and Twins, but the Royals won only six more
games than they lost. The Royals batted .268, with outfielder Willie Wilson
and DH Hal McRae topping the .300 mark. But the pitching was mediocre and the
staff depended heavily on reliever Dan Quisenberry, who saved 44 games. When
the Tigers and Royals faced off in LCS play, the Tigers won the 1984 AL
pennant by dispatching the Royals in three games. And in World Series action,
the Tigers easily defeated the San Diego Padres in five games. By skippering
the Tigers to victory, Sparky Anderson became the first manager to win World
Series titles in both the American and National leagues.
     But the Tigers' view from the top was a brief one. In 1985 they fell 15
games off the pace, leaving the Eastern field to the Blue Jays and Yankees.
And at the close of the season, the Blue Jays topped the Yankees by 2 games,
to win their first divisional title since joining the AL in the mini-expansion
of 1977. The rise of the Blue Jays owed much to general manager Pat Gillick,
who, by dint of shrewd trades and canny selections in annual surplus-player
drafts, swiftly assembled a pennant contender. In 1985 the Blue Jays'
pitching staff led the league, and outfielder Jesse Barfield (.289-27-84)
powered an offense that produced a .269 team batting average and 158 homers.
Pitcher Dave Stieb's 2.48 ERA led the league's pitchers, although his 1413
record was disappointing. Starters Doyle Alexander and Jimmy Key combined for
31 victories, and Dennis Lamp posted an 110 record in relief. In the lightly
regarded Western Division, meanwhile, the Royals became the only AL team of
this brief era to repeat as divisional champs. In winning by a single game
over the Angels, the Royals batted only .252, but powered 154 homers. Third
baseman George Brett's .335-30-112 led the hitters, and first baseman Steve
Balboni drove in 88 runs and hit 36 homers. The pitching was good. Young
Bret Saberhagen's 206, 2.87 ERA won him the Cy Young Award, Charlie
Leibrandt's 17 wins came on the league's second-best ERA, and reliever Dan
Quisenberry saved 37 games. When the Blue Jays and Royals squared off in the
newly extended seven-game LCS, the Blue Jays took a 31 lead, but the gritty
Royals came on to win in seven games, beating the Blue Jays in their home
roost the last two games. In the World Series, the resilient Royals staged
yet another memorable comeback against the favored Cardinals. After losing
the first two games at home, the Royals fell behind 31, but rallied to win the
next three games. This latest World Series victory extended the AL's winning
streak to three.
     In another topsy-turvy campaign, the 1986 Red Sox dethroned the Blue Jays
in the East. The Red Sox took the lead in June and hung on to win the
division pennant by 5 1/2 games over the Yankees. A .271 team batting assault
was fronted by batting champ Wade Boggs (.357-8-71) and outfielder Jim Rice
(.324-20-110). Boston's overall pitching was mediocre, but starter Roger
Clemens led all pitchers with a 244, 2.48 effort that won the big righthander
both the MVP and Cy Young awards. While the Red Sox were winning in the East,
the Royals faded in the West as arm miseries tolled on young Saberhagen. Thus
the Angels won the division by 5 games over the Texas Rangers. Rookie first
baseman Wally Joyner, who replaced the great Carew, batted .299-22-100 to head
the Angels' weak .255 batting. But Angel pitching ranked second in the AL,
with Mike Witt winning 18 on a sparkling 2.84 ERA, Kirk McCaskill and veteran
Don Sutton combining for 32 wins, and reliever Donnie Moore saving 21 games.
When the Angels took a 31 lead over the Red Sox in LCS play, it now appeared
as if manager Gene Mauch might win his first pennant in twenty-five years at
the helm of major league teams. Indeed, in the fifth game Mauch's Angels were
one pitch away from a league title, but the Red Sox rallied to win the game on
heroics by Dave Henderson. The Red Sox then took the next two games at home
to land the 1986 AL pennant. In the World Series the Red Sox jumped to a 32
lead over the Mets and appeared on the verge of winning their first world
title since 1918, but the Mets crushed the dream by winning the last two games
at Shea Stadium.
     As a climax to the eighty-six-year history of the AL, the 1987 season
provided a storied campaign. In a frenetic season which saw AL sluggers set
yet another homer mark and attendance climb to new heights, both divisional
races were fiercely contested. In the East waged an epic struggle that ended
in a 2-game victory by the Tigers. With seven games to play, the Blue Jays
led by 3 1/2 games, but incredibly they lost all seven, including three vital
games to the Tigers in Detroit. Hefty .272 batting and a major-league-leading
225 homer barrage powered the Tigers, whose shaky pitching staff was bolstered
by the September acquisition of veteran Doyle Alexander from the Braves. By
posting a 50 record with the Tigers, Alexander was named Pitcher of the Month
by The Sporting News. Among the offensive standouts, shortstop Alan Trammell
batted .343-28-105, young catcher Matt Nokes, who replaced the departed
Parrish, batted .289-32-87, and forty-year-old first baseman Darrell Evans hit
34 homers and drove in 99 runs. With Anderson's Tigers posting the best
record in the majors, scant hope was afforded the Western-winning Minnesota
Twins, who defeated the Royals by 2 games to win their first divisional title.
Indeed, the Twins surrendered more runs (806) than they scored (786). But the
Twins batted .261 and poled 196 homers; outfielder Kirby Puckett (.332-28-99)
led the hitters, with outfielder Tom Brunansky and infielders Kent Hrbek and
Gary Gaetti combining for 97 homers and 284 RBIs. On the other hand, Twins'
pitchers allowed a horrendous 4.63 ERA. But the staff's most respectable
member, Frank Viola, stood out as the winningest left-handed pitcher in the
majors over the past four seasons. In 1986 Viola posted a 1710, 2.90 ERA, and
veteran Bert Blyleven recorded a 1512 mark.
     Matched against the Tigers in LCS play, the Twins were scorned as
hometown dependents whose outstanding home record owed to the vagaries of
their much-maligned domed stadium. But the Twins thrashed the Tigers in five
games to win their first AL pennant in twenty-two years. Moreover, they went
on to beat the crippled Cardinals in a seven-game World Series struggle by
scoring all of their victories in their cozy "homer dome' before capacity
crowds of screaming, hankie-waving fans. Thus the 1987 World Series stood out
as the first where all victories were won on home fields. And the Twins were
indeed fortunate to have hosted four of the games in their favorite bailiwick.
     In 1988 a timely rule change which redefined the strike zone helped to
quell the raging homer epidemic. In an anticlimactic season that saw batting
and power hitting tail off, the well-balanced Oakland Athletics dominated the
AL West from the start. The A's 104 victories topped the majors and lapped
the runner-up Minnesota Twins by 13 games. League-leading pitching, paced by
Dave Stewart's 21 wins and reliever Dennis Eckersley's 45 saves, carried the
A's who were powered by young outfielder Jose Canseco's .307-42-124 batting.
Canseco also stole 40 bases to become the first player to notch at least 40
homers and as many stolen bases. Meanwhile the AL East saw the only hotly
contested divisional race in the majors, as the Boston Red Sox edged the
Detroit Tigers by a single game; only 3 1/2 games separated the Red Sox from
the sixth place Yankees. Barely playing .500 ball at the All-Star break, the
Red Sox changed managers--from John McNamara to Joe Morgan--and staged an
extended winning streak that carried them to the top. Despite a late-season
slump, they hung on to win. Leading the Boston attack, perennial batting
champ Wade Boggs batted .366 to lead the majors and outfielder Mike Greenwell
weighed in with a .325-22-119 performance. Ace pitchers Roger Clemens and
Bruce Hurst each won 18 games and newly acquired reliever Lee Smith saved 29;
still, the Red Sox needed the timely pitching of Mike Boddicker, who joined
the staff from the Orioles late in the season and won seven games for Boston.
However, the Red Sox were mismatched against the A's, who stormed to a
sweeping victory in LCS play on the strength of Canseco's 3 homers and
Eckersley's four saves in relief of the starters. In the World Series the A's
were held in check by the Los Angeles Dodgers' pitchers, notably Orel
Hershiser--whose three hits in Game 2 exceeded the Series total of Canseco and
Mark McGwire combined.
     But the resilient A's came back with a vengeance in 1989. Newcomers
included outfielder Rickey Henderson, acquired from the Yankees, and veteran
pitcher Mike Moore, picked up in the re-entry draft. Moore signed for $1.9
million, which he repaid by winning 19 games with a nifty 2.61 ERA. Moore
buttressed a pitching staff headed by Dave Stewart, whose 21 victories marked
the third consecutive year he matched or topped 20 wins. Bob Welch added 17
victories and reliever Dennis Eckersley saved 33 games. Offensively,
Henderson led the league in stolen bases (72) and tied for the lead in runs
scored (113). Henderson's production offset the loss of slugger Canseco, who
missed 88 games because of an injury. Returning to action, Canseco hit 17
homers to augment the 33 hit by McGwire, who drove in 95 runs. Manager Tony
LaRussa's team batted .261 with 127 homers. Meanwhile in the AL East, Manager
Frank Robinson took over the helm of the hapless Orioles, who won but 54 games
in 1988, and drove them to within two games of the divisional championship.
For this achievement Robinson was voted AL Manager of the Year, thus becoming
the first black manager to win the award in both major leagues. But the AL
East championship went to the Toronto Blue Jays, who were skippered by Cito
Gaston. In 1989 Gaston took over a 12-24 team and drove them to a 2-game
victory over the Orioles, thus becoming the first black manager to land a
divisional title. Toronto's pitching staff was the best in the East, but
ranked only fourth in the AL. Dave Stieb's 178 pitching led the hurlers,
while six Blue Jay sluggers, led by AL homer champ Fred McGriff's 36 blows,
reached double figures in homer production. But when the Blue Jays faced the
A's in LCS play, the A's crushed them in five games. And matched against the
NL Giants in the earthquake-ravaged Bay Area World Series, the A's swept to
victory. For pitching two of the four victories, Stewart was named the Series
MVP.
     Early in the year 1990 continuing animosity stalled the latest
negotiations between owners and players for a new Basic Agreement. With
tensions inflamed by revelations of owner collusion against free agent players
over the years 1985-1987, negotiations broke down. Coming as it did on the
centennial anniversary of the great player strike of 1890, this latest
confrontation evoked a ghostly sense of deja vu. Thus when the sixth Basic
Agreement expired with no new one in place, the owners locked the players out
of spring training camps.
     The owners aimed at imposing revenue sharing and pay-for-performance
plans. For their part, the players rejected these and demanded:  a return to
the two-year requirement for salary arbitration eligibility; the restoration
of twenty-five man playing rosters; protection from owner collusion; and
increases in the minimum salary and pension plan funding. With the battle
lines drawn, the lockout lasted thirty-two days, affected spring training
conditioning, and delayed the opening of the championship season. When a
settlement was reached on March 19, the new agreement compromised on the
salary arbitration issue, hiked the minimum salary to $100,000, increased the
owners' contribution to the pension fund, and provided for punitive damages to
be paid in the event of any future conspiracies by owners against free agent
players. The owners dropped their revenue-sharing and pay-for-performance
proposals, and the players approved the expansion of the NL to fourteen
clubs in 1993. Following the settlement, an attenuated spring training
program began March 20 and the opening of the playing season was delayed a
week. But the 162-game schedule was preserved by extending the regular season
three days to make up the cancelled early games. This seventh Basic Agreement
promised four years of peace, but lingering animosity between players and
owners indicated that the struggle would be resumed once this latest pact
expired.
     With baseball hostilities returning to their natural habitat of the
playing fields, fails were treated to a season of unpredictable events and
performances. For one, the 1990 season saw a record nine no-hitters tossed by
major league pitchers, a total that matched the number produced in some entire
decades of this century. Among these, ageless Nolan Ryan's latest masterpiece
extended his record total to six. The veteran also boosted his all-time
strikeout mark by fanning another 232 batters. And among relief pitchers,
Bobby Thigpen of the White Sox posted a new seasonal mark with 57 saves.
     In the AL such pitching pyrotechnics reduced the number of .300 batters
to six, but slugger Cecil Fielder of the Detroit Tigers, who had played in
Japan during the 1989 season, wallopped 51 homers to become the first to top
the 50 mark since 1977. In 1990, too, perennial league batting champs Wade
Boggs and Tony Gwynn faltered, allowing veterans George Brett and Willie McGee
to claim titles. On another note, the season saw Commissioner Fay Vincent bar
owner George Steinbrenner from running the New York Yankees. The Yanks
finished last in the AL East with the worst record in the AL. The New Yorkers
also suffered the ignominy of being swept in their 12 encounters with the
Oakland A's.
     Indeed, in 1990 the talent-rich Oakland A's were heavy favorites to
repeat as World Champions. With star pitchers Bob Welch and Dave Stewart
winning 27 and 22 games and reliever Dennis Eckersley saving 48, the A's
overcame a mediocre .254 team batting average to win 103 games, the best mark
in the majors. But the A's were dogged by the Chicago White Sox who, though
finishing 9 games back in the division, attracted over 3 million fans while
playing their last season in old Comiskey Park.
     In the weaker AL East the Boston Red Sox and the Toronto Blue Jays staged
the closest race in any major league division, a struggle that ended with
Boston on top by two games. The Red Sox were led by pitcher Roger Clemens'
21-6 effort that included a major league leading 1.93 ERA. In LCS play
Boston's vulnerable bullpen, the worst in the majors, faltered. In sweeping
the Red Sox the A's won a third consecutive pennant. Although heavily favored
to win the World Series for a second straight time, the A's were swept by the
NL champion Cincinnati Reds.

Recent Campaigns:  The NL, 1981-1990

     Although less competitively balanced than the AL, the NL campaigns of
this era were hotly contested. Each one of the twelve teams won a divisional
title in these years. But the Dodgers won four Western titles and captured
two league pennants and two world titles, and in the East the Cardinals won
three divisional races and three league championships, yet won only one World
Series. Dual divisional titles were won by the Mets, Giants, and Cubs, and
singletons were won by the Expos, Padres, Phillies, Braves, Astros, Pirates,
and Reds.
     When the long players' strike of 1981 gutted team playing schedules by an
average of 55 games, the split-season format was unveiled upon resumption of
play in August in hopes of salvaging the campaign. By dint of their 1 and
1/2-game lead over the Cardinals on the June 11 strike day, the Phillies were
declared first-half winners in the East; and by virtue of a mere half-game
lead over the Reds on that Fatal date, the Dodgers became the first-half
winners in the West. These were close calls to be sure, but no closer than
the results of the second-half races. In the NL East, the Montreal Expos
finished a half-game up on the luckless Cardinals, while the Houston Astros
edged the snakebit Reds by 1 1/2 games in the West. As frustrated runners-up
in two close calls, the Cardinals and Reds with the best overall record in the
NL received no recognition. However, the defiant Reds later raised their own
homemade pennant as a symbol of protest. In the playoffs for the divisional
titles, the Expos beat the Phillies in five games to win in the East, and the
Dodgers rallied from a 2-1 deficit in games to beat the Astros in the West.
The division-winning Expos and Dodgers then met in the usual League
Championship Series, which the Dodgers won. Once again rallying from a 2-1
deficit, manager Lasorda's men edged the Expos. In winning the NL's forlorn
1981 championship, the Dodgers batted .262, led the league in homers with 82,
and fielded the league's second-ranked pitching staff. Rookie pitcher
Fernando Valenzuela won his first eight games and finished with a 13-7 mark to
pace the staff, while outfielders Pedro Guerrero (.300-12-48) and Dusty Baker
(.320-9-49) led the batting attack. In World Series play, the Dodgers once
again dug themselves a hole by losing the first two games. But once again
they rebounded, this time sweeping their old Yankee tormentors to win the 1981
world title.
     With the game's image blighted by the "dishonest season" of 1981, the NL
sorely needed a dramatic flourish to regain its credibility. Mercifully this
was supplied by the extremely close divisional races of 1982. In the NL East
a four-team struggle ended with the Cardinals topping the Phillies by 3 games.
At bat the Cardinals hit .264, but with scant power (67 homers). Outfielder
Lonnie Smith was the only regular to top the .300 mark, but first baseman
Keith Hernandez batted .299 and drove in 94 runs, and outfielder George
Hendrick powered the team with his .282-19-104 hitting. By way of
compensation, the Cardinals led the league in fielding and stolen bases, and
owned the league's second-best mound corps. Starters Joaquin Andujar and Bob
Forsch each won 15 games, and ace reliever Bruce Sutter won 9 and saved a
league-leading 36 games. In the West, meanwhile, the Braves won their first
13 games and hung on for dear life thereafter to edge the Dodgers by a game.
Offensively, the Braves batted only .256, but led the league in homers with
146. Outfielder Dale Murphy's 36 homers generated a league-leading 109 RBIs,
and third baseman Bob Horner hit 32 homers and drove in 97 runs. Veteran
knuckleball hurler Phil Niekro's 17-4 effort headed the pitching staff, which
needed every one of reliever Gene Garber's 30 saves. In LCS play the Braves'
mediocre pitching tolled as the Cardinals swept to victory. In ensuing World
Series play, the Cardinals fell behind the heavy-hitting Brewers 3-2, but
rallied to win the final two games at home. This latest World Series victory
was the fourth straight for NL contenders.
     When the Cardinals succumbed to poor pitching in 1983, the Phillies
snatched the Eastern title by 6 games over the Pirates. The Phillies did it
with a brilliant stretch drive, winning twenty-one of their last twenty-five
games. Offensively, the aging Phillies batted only .249, but third baseman
Mike Schmidt's 40 homers led the league, and his 109 RBIs led the team. A
sound pitching staff, fronted by John Denny's Cy Young Award-winning 19-6
effort and reliever Al Holland's 25 saves was a decisive factor in the
victory. Meanwhile, in the West the Dodgers also mounted a September stretch
drive to topple the Braves by 3 games. Like the Phillies, the Dodgers' .250
hitting was lackluster, but the team led the league in homers (146);
outfielder Guerrero's 32 homers and 103 RBIs headed the assault. A major
factor was the team's pitching staff, whose 3.10 ERA was the league's best.
Valenzuela and Bob Welch combined for 30 victories, and reliever Steve Howe
saved 18. In LCS play, veteran hurler Steve Carlton's two victories paced the
Phillies to victory in four games. However, the Philadelphia "Wheeze Kids"
fell to the Orioles in five games in the 1983 World Series.
     As the Phillies sank to fourth place in 1984, the long-suffering Chicago
Cubs notched their first pennant of any sort since 1945. In downing the Mets
by 6 1/2 games in the East, the Cubs staged a second-half rally, fronted by
ex-Phillie infielder Ryne Sandberg's MVP-winning .314 batting. Dodger castoff
Ron Cey contributed 25 homers and 97 RBIs, and young first baseman Leon "Bull"
Durham weighed in with 23 homers and 96 RBIs. And the pitching staff was
bolstered by yet another recent acquisition, Rick Sutcliffe, whose 16-1 record
won him the Cy Young Award. Starter Steve Trout chipped in with 13
victories, and reliever Lee Smith won 9 games and saved 33. While the Cubs
were winning in the East, another newcomer, the San Diego Padres, easily won
the Western title by 12 games over the runner-up Braves. The Padres batted
.259, with young outfielder Tony Gwynn leading the league with his .351
batting. The team's modest total of 109 homers was augmented by third baseman
Graig Nettles and outfielder Kevin McReynolds, each of whom poled 20. More
distinguished was the pitching staff, whose 3.48 ERA ranked third in the
league. Able starters Eric Show, Ed Whitson, and Mark Thurmond combined for
43 victories, and veteran reliever Goose Gossage won 10 and saved 25 games.
In LCS play the Cubs pounded out a pair of early victories at Wrigley Field,
but the surprising Padres swept the next three games at home to become the
first NL team ever to win an LCS after losing the first two games. Sad to
say, however, the Padres' world title hopes went aglimmering as the Tigers
trounced them in five games in the 1984 World Series.
     The following year the Cardinals won another NL pennant. In fending off
the rising New York Mets by 3 games in the East, the Cardinals relied on
league-leading batting and base stealing. Outfielder Willie McGee's
league-leading .353 batting won him the MVP Award, and outfielder Vince
Coleman won Rookie of the Year honors by stealing 110 bases--a new record for
a rookie. Among other stalwarts, second baseman Tom Herr batted .302; first
baseman Jack Clark, recently acquired from the Giants, hit 22 homers and drove
in 87 runs; and shortstop Ozzie Smith, who won the league's Gold Glove Award
for a sixth straight year, batted .276. What's more, Cardinal pitching ranked
second in the league, with ex-Pirate John Tudor leading the hurlers with a
21-8, 1.93 ERA performance. Starters Andujar (21 wins) and Danny Cox (18 wins)
lent sturdy support, as did relievers Jeff Lahti and Ken Dayley. The pair's
30 saves compensated for the loss of free agent Sutter. As the Cardinals were
winning in the East, the Dodgers went on to win the Western title by 5 1/2
games over the Reds. Offensively, the Dodgers' .261 hitting was led by
outfielder Guerrero's .320-33-87 hitting. Better still, the Dodger pitching
corps led the majors with a 2.96 ERA. The starting quartet of Orel Hershiser,
Bob Welch, Jerry Reuss, and Fernando Valenzuela produced 64 wins, and the
bullpen saved 31 games. In LCS play, the well-armed Dodgers took the first
two games of the newly established seven-game format, but the Cardinals swept
the next four to win the NL pennant. Pitted against the underdog Royals in
the 1985 World Series, the Cardinals won three of the first four games,
including the first two in the Royals' home lair. But the Royals won the
fifth game at St. Louis and the final two games back home. The sixth game
was marred by a disputed call at first base that gave the Royals a life of
which they took Full advantage. The Royals then won the final game in an 11-0
laugher, and their victory extended the recent AL World Series winning streak
to three years.
     The following year the New York Mets ended the AL's victory flurry with a
dramatic win. In dominating the NL East, the 1986 Mets won 108 games to lap
the runner-up Phillies by 21 1/2 games. Offensively, the versatile Mets led
the league in hitting (.263), poled 148 homers, and stole 118 bases. First
baseman Keith Hernandez (.310-13-83) headed the charge, with outfielder Darryl
Strawberry and catcher Gary Carter powering a combined 51 homers and 198 RbIs.
As icing on their victory cake, the Mets fielded the best pitching staff in
the majors. Starters Bob Ojeda (18-5), Dwight Gooden (17-6), Sid Fernandez
(16-6) and Ron Darling (15-6) were formidable, as was the bullpen duo of Roger
McDowell (14 wins, 22 saves) and Jesse Orosco (8 wins, 21 saves). While the
Mets were compiling the best record in the majors, the Houston Astros were
winning the Western Division by 10 games over the Reds. Offensively, the
Astros batted .255 with 125 homers. Outfielder Kevin Bass batted .311-20-79
to head the hitters, while first baseman Glenn Davis powered 31 homers and
drove in 101 runs. Backing the Hitters was the league's second-best pitching
staff, fronted by Mike Scott's 18-10 hurling, which was accompanied by a
league-leading 2.22 ERA. While the outcome of the LCS appeared to be a
foregone conclusion, the Astros hung tough before losing in six games to the
Mets. The Red Sox also fell to the Mets in World Series play, but not before
throwing a scare into manager Davey Johnson's crew. Indeed, the Red Sox took a
3-2 lead in games before the Mets rallied to win the final two games at Shea
Stadium.
     The following year most observers picked the swaggering Mets to repeat,
but the resilient Cardinals took the 1987 Eastern title by 3 games. Although
outhit by the league-leading Met batters, the Cardinals mustered .263 hitting,
which they backed by stout relief pitching to pull off their victory.
Offensively, the Cardinals' 94 homers were the fewest by any major league team
this season, but first baseman Jack Clark bashed 35 and drove in 106 runs.
Third baseman Terry Pendleton drove in 96 runs, while shortstop Ozzie Smith
drove home 75 runs with nary a homer to his credit. But the Cardinals atoned
with a sprightly running game led by outfielder Vince Coleman, who topped 100
seasonal steals for the third straight season. Likewise the shaky pitching
staff that completed only ten games was backed by a redoubtable relief crew
whose ace, Todd Worrell, saved 33 games. Meanwhile in the NL West, the Giants
won over the bridesmaid Reds by 6 games. The Giant victory was a dramatic
turnabout for a team that in 1985 had finished last in their division with 100
losses. A fine balance of hitting and pitching made the difference in 1987.
At the plate the Giants batted .260 with 205 homers and were led by first
baseman Will Clark's .308-35-91 pyrotechnics. Moreover, the pitching staff
boasted the league's best ERA, even if the Giant starters completed only 28
games. What mattered was that relievers Scott Garrelts and Jeff Robinson
combined for 22 wins and 31 saves. When the Giants met the Cardinals in LCS
play, injuries to Jack Clark and Pendleton cast the Cardinals as underdogs.
But the Cardinals won their third NL title of the era by overcoming a 3-2
deficit in games with a pair of home-field victories. In World Series play,
it was the crippled Cardinals who were favored over the unheralded Twins, but
the American Leaguers won four games, all of them in their cozy domed stadium,
to edge the Cardinals in seven games.
     The pitching rule modification that stemmed the homer tide in 1988
wreaked havoc with NL batters in 1988 as only five regulars attained the .300
mark. Although no New York Met batter joined this circle, Darryl Strawberry
boomed a league-leading 39 homers and drove in 101 runs and outfield mate
Kevin McReynolds produced a .288-27-99; they powered the Mets to 100 victories
and an easy 15-game victory over the Pirates in the NL East. With a 2.91 ERA,
the Mets also boasted the best pitching staff in the majors. David Cone led
the starters at 20-3 and Dwight Gooden and Ron Darling combined for 35 wins.
Relievers Randy Myers and Roger McDowell saved 42 games. In the West,
meanwhile, the Los Angeles Dodgers took the lead in July and hung on to win by
7 games over the Cincinnati Reds who along the way got a rare perfect-game
pitching performance from Tom Browning. But the Dodgers held claim to the
best individual pitching performance of the year when their ace, Orel
Hershiser, finished the regular season with a new record of 59 scoreless
innings. In addition to a 23-8 record Hershiser led all NL pitchers in
innings pitched, complete games, and shutouts. Offensively the modest Dodger
attack was powered by newly acquired free agent Kirk Gibson (.290-25-76) and
veteran outfielder Mike Marshall (.277-20-82). The lightly regarded Dodgers
were afforded little chance against the Mets in LCS play. But the Dodgers
prevailed in seven games with Hershiser starting three games and relieving in
another. And then they upset the Oakland Athletics in the World Series,
despite crippling injuries to Gibson, pitcher John Tudor, and catcher Mike
Scioscia.
     But there was no encore to such heroics, and the 1989 Dodgers fell to
fourth place in the NL West. An impotent .240 batting average that included
only 89 homers sabotaged the pitching staffs major league-leading 2.95 ERA.
Hershiser again led the league in innings pitched and finished second in ERA,
but was held to a 15-15 performance. And the workload took its toll on the
Dodger ace, who was sidelined by a crippling shoulder injury at the outset of
the 1990 season.
     As the struggling Dodgers fell from grace, the Giants and the Padres
battled for the 1989 Western title. The talent-laden Reds straggled in fifth,
as the investigation of their manager, Pete Rose, culminated in his expulsion
from the game. San Diego's reliever Mark Davis saved a league-leading 44
games for the Padres. Offensively, Tony Gwynn's league-leading .336 batting
and 203 hits and Jack Clark's 26 homers, 94 RBIS, and a major-league-leading
132 walks fronted a Padre attack that fell three games short of their goal.
The victory went to manager Roger Craig's Giants, whose pitching staff, headed
by Scott Garrelts' league-leading 14-5 winning percentage and 2.28 ERA,
ranked third in the league. At bat, out-fielder-third baseman Kevin Mitchell
won MVP honors by blasting a matchless 47 homers and 125 RBIS. First baseman
Will Clark weighed in with a .333 batting mark and scored 104 runs to lead the
league. That the Giants' .250 team batting average ranked fourth in the
league underscored the NL's impotent batting, which averaged .246 and produced
only five .300-plus batters. While the Giants eked out a narrow victory in
the West, manager Don Zimmer's Chicago Cubs coasted to a six-game victory over
the much-touted, but underachieving Mets in the East. A league-leading .261
batting attack, paced by first baseman Mark Grace's .314 hitting and second
baseman Ryne Sandberg's .290 batting, compensated for the pitching staff's
sixth-place ranking in the league.
     In LCS play the Giants downed the Chicagoans in five games, but then were
victimized by the Oakland A's, who swept to victory in the World Series of
1989.
     If the status quo was the rule in the AL in 1990, it was otherwise in the
NL as the teams resumed play after the lockout-delayed start of the season.
When the smoke of battle lifted, the reigning divisional winners of 1989 were
dethroned by a pair of fifth-place finishers of the previous year. In gaining
the heights in the NL East, the Pittsburgh Pirates won by 4 games over the
underachieving New York Mets. Outfielder Barry Bonds batted .301-33-114 and
stole 52 bases, and first baseman Bobby Bonilla added 32 homers and 120 RBIs
to propel the Pirates. A 22-game winner, Doug Drabek, led the staff, which
received a 6-2 boost from Zane Smith, acquired from the Montreal Expos in
August.
     In the NL West the Cincinnati Reds won four fewer games than did the
Pirates, but the team's 91-70 log topped the Los Angeles Dodgers by 5 games.
In winning the Western title, the Reds took over on day one and after winning
their first seven games, they clung to the top all the way to become the first
NL team to accomplish this feat since the inauguration of the 162-game
schedule in 1962.
     Starters Jose Rijo and Tom Browning combined for 29 wins, but the Reds'
bullpen crew, the self-styled "nasty boys" Ron Dibble and Randy Myers, saved
42 games. Among the hitters, rookie Hal Morris played in 107 games and batted
.340 and regulars Barry Larkin and Mariano Duncan batted .300. Chris Sabo and
Eric Davis combined for 49 homers. Manager Lou Piniella, one of many
Steinbrenner managerial castoffs, replaced Pete Rose, who watched the Reds'
fall exploits from his prison vantage point.
     When the Pirates and Reds clashed in LCS play, the Pirates won the opener
but fell to the Reds in six games. Given little chance against the Oakland
A's, the NL champion Reds opened the World Series by shutting out their rivals
7-0 behind Jose Rijo. Then with Rijo adding another victory and Hatcher
smacking 9 hits in 12 at bats for a new World Series batting mark, the Reds
swept the A's!  This unexpected victory, reminiscent of the 1914 sweep of the
Philadelphia A's by the lowly Boston Braves, brightened a season that appeared
to be ill-starred at its outset by the bitter labor struggle.


Campaigns of the Nineties:  The AL 1991-1993

     While AL teams arrayed themselves for the 1991 campaign, the crushing
World Series setback preyed on the minds of many players and officials. The
AL East had supplied only one league pennant over the past six seasons, and
seemed chronically weak. In 1991 Toronto won by seven games over the Tigers
and Red Sox, who tied for second with identical 84-78 records, while all
others in the East posted losing records.
     In landing their third divisional pennant since 1985, the Blue Jays
attracted a record 4 million fans to their all-weather Skydome stadium.
Combined with record throngs at Chicago's new Comiskey Park, such crowds
enabled the AL to set an all-time pro sports attendance mark for 1991 (over 32
million). What Toronto fans saw was a redoubtable pitching staff of solid
starters backed by a bullpen that posted the most saves (60) in the league.
Offensively Toronto ranked seventh in batting and eighth in homers, but young
second baseman Roberto Alomar switch-hit for .259-9-69 and outfielder Joe
Carter, like Alomar newly acquired in a trade with San Diego, powered the team
with 33 homers and 108 RBIs.
     AL prospects for a World Series title were brighter in the strong Western
Division where every team played .500 ball, and where fans were treated to
such exploits as Rickey Henderson setting a new lifetime stolen base record
and Nolan Ryan pitching his record seventh no-hitter. Heavily favored to
repeat as division champs were the Oakland A's, but manager Tony LaRussa's
shellshocked team fell to fourth place, 11 games off the pace. Into this
power vacuum rushed the Minnesota Twins, who matched their Atlanta Braves
counterparts of the NL West by moving from worst to first in a single season,
an unprecedented tandem.
     The revitalization of the Twins followed canny moves by GM Andy MacPhail
(a grandson of the innovative Larry MacPhail) in the free agent market. Among
these moves MacPhail landed the aging free agent pitcher Jack Morris, who
signed an incentive-laden contract which earned him $3.8 million for the
season, and he also enlisted free agent third baseman Mike Pagliarulo. Both
moves paid handsomely as Pagliarulo batted .279 in 121 games while Morris
pitched 247 innings and posted and 18-12 record. Backing Morris was sophomore
Scott Erickson (20-8) and Mets' castoff Kevin Tapani (16-9) while another
ex-Met, Rick Aguilera, emerged as the team's ace reliever (42 saves).
Offensively, the Twins batted a league-leading .280 and poled 140 homers.
Outfielder Kirby Puckett (.319-15-89) keyed the attack with
rookie-of-the-year second baseman Chuck Knoblauch, playing his first season
out of Texas A&M, batting .281. The Twins outlasted a challenge from the
Chicago White Sox to win by eight games.
     In the LCS the Twins shook off an early loss to the Blue Jays to score a
convincing victory in five games behind Puckett's .492-2-6 batting onslaught.
The victory set the stage for one of the most dramatic World Series clashes in
recent memory. Playing at home in their enclosed Metrodome, the Twins won the
first two games, but lost the next three games in the Braves' lair. Returning
home, the Twins tied the Series with a 4-3 victory and nailed down the world
title the next night on Series MVP Jack Morris' gritty ten-inning 1-0
victory.
     The 1992 season began with the Twins giving every indication of repeating
their success. Grabbing an early lead in the AL West, they went on to lead
the majors in batting (.277), with Puckett's .329 hitting ranking second in
the AL. But in late July the resurgent Oakland A's swept the Twins at the
Metrodome and grabbed a lead which they never relinquished. At season's end
the A's owned a 96-66 record with the Twins six games back, followed by the
White Sox in third place.
     Oakland's return to the top was sparked by first baseman Mark McGwire's
reversion to form; the big slugger hit 42 homers and led the league in
slugging. As a team the A's batted only .258 with 142 homers, but more
decisive support came from the pitching staff, which ranked fourth in the
league with a 3.73 ERA. Mike Moore (17-12), Dave Stewart (12-10), and Ron
Darling (15-10) headed the staff, but the club's greatest asset was their
nonpareil relief ace Dennis Eckersley (51 saves, a 1.91 ERA, and the Cy Young
Award).
     While the A's were upsetting the status quo in the AL West, no eastern
team could nudge the Toronto Blue Jays from the top spot. Once again home
fans backed their team in numbers above 4 million. And in landing his third
AL East title since assuming his post in 1989, manager Cito Gaston saw his men
match Oakland's 96-66 winning clip while eking out a four game win over the
rising Milwaukee Brewers. Saddling themselves with the third highest payroll
in the majors, the Blue Jays signed free agents DH Dave Winfield and pitcher
Jack Morris, the hero on the 1990 Twins. Morris emerged as the AL's
winningest pitcher at 21-6. Juan Guzman recovered from an injury to go
16-5-2.64, and Todd Stottlemyre won 12 games. Like the A's, the Blue Jays
relied heavily on their bullpen with reliever Tom Henke saving 34 games. On
offense the fortyish Winfield batted .290-26-108 and outfielder Joe Carter
added 34 homers and 119 RBIS. But more help was needed and the Blue Jays
landed ace pitcher Dave Cone in a late season trade with the Mets; in the
September stretch drive Cone contributed four vital wins.
     In LCS play, the Blue Jays shrugged off a first-game loss at the hands of
the AL West champion Oakland A's and went on to thrash their rivals by winning
four of the next five games. The victory cast the Toronto Blue Jays as the
first foreign team ever to win a major league championship and Gaston as the
first black manager ever to land a big league pennant.
     Capacity crowds packed the Skydome when the Blue Jays came home after
splitting the first two games played in Atlanta. By single-run margins the
Blue Jays then won the next two games to take a 3-1 lead in the Series. But
the Braves pounded Morris, a loser in all four of his post-season appearances,
to win the breakaway game and send the Series back to Atlanta. And there, in
an 11-inning 4-3 victory with Winfield driving in the winning runs on a
double, the Blue Jays became the first foreign-based team to win a World
Series.
     The 1993 season began with all American League team lineups affected by
the National League's expansion to fourteen teams. For the first time, teams
in both majors shared the windfall ($190 million) paid by the National
League's two newly enrolled teams while also surrendering players in the
expansion draft held to staff the tyros with players. As a result all
established major league teams lost promising players. Combined with brisk
activity in the free agent marketplace, the upheaval had some 250 major league
players changing teams, which was the largest single season turnover in major
league history.
     The diffusion of talent tolled on pitching staffs and contributed to a
batting explosion that surpassed that of 1987 and had some pundits drawing
comparisons with such explosive seasons as the 1930 campaign or the dimly
remembered 1893 season. Certainly pitchers experienced a reign of terror in
1993 as ERAs in both leagues topped 4.00 (up from 3.74 in 1992) and shutouts
declined by more than 100. Especially hard hit were the Cleveland Indians, who
lost two pitchers in a preseason boating accident. For batters, however, it
was a feast as overall batting averages in the majors climbed to .266 (up 10
points over 1992); sixteen sluggers ripped 30 or more homers with another five
banging 40 or more. Nearly thirty players drove in 100 or more runs--a feat
not matched since the 1930 campaign. That American League hitters once again
surpassed the National League in batting and homer production owed to the
maturation of such rising young stars as Ken Griffey, Jr. of Seattle, Juan
Gonzalez of Texas, Travis Fryman of Detroit, John Olerud and Roberto Alomar of
Toronto, Carlos Baerga of Cleveland, and Frank Thomas of Chicago.
     The 1993 season tested the mettle of the defending champion Toronto Blue
Jays, winners of three of the past four American League titles. Free agency
denuded the team of outfielder Dave Winfield, who notched his 3,000th hit with
the Minnesota Twins, Candy Maldonado, and pitchers Tom Henke and Jimmy Key. To
plug these gaps the Blue Jays signed a pair of veteran free agents, acquiring
Paul Molitor from the Brewers as DH and veteran pitcher Dave Stewart from the
Athletics. For additional help, early in the race shortstop Tony Fernandez was
obtained from the Mets and during the stretch drive Rickey Henderson was
acquired from the Athletics.
     With young first baseman John Olerud batting .400 through August and
eventually leading the league with a .363 mark, with Molitor batting .332 and
leading the league in hits, and with second baseman Roberto Alomar batting
.326, the Blue Jays boasted the league's three top hitters. It was a feat no
major league team had accomplished since 1893.
     The Blue Jay offense produced a .278 team average with 159 homers, but
the team's shaky pitching made the division outcome a near thing. The loss of
lefty Jimmy Key to the Yankees and Jack Morris' ineffectiveness hurt.
Notwithstanding reliever Duane Ward's 45 saves and young Pat Hentgen's 19
victories, it was not until September that the pitching staff fully asserted
itself.
     From early May to early July the Jays trailed the Tigers. Thereafter they
held the heights, but the revived New York Yankees, whose owner returned from
exile in 1993, as well as the Baltimore Orioles, clung close until
mid-September. Indeed, on eight occasions the hard-hitting Yankees (.279
batting with 178 homers) drew even with the Jays, yet never once wrested sole
possession of the spot.
     Unreliable pitching doomed the Yankees who, for the last time, drew even
with Toronto in early September. But the rallying Jays shook off a six-game
losing streak and won eight straight games while the Yankees and Orioles
collapsed. The late-season surge enabled the Canadians to lap the Yankees by
seven games and present manager Cito Gaston with his fourth American League
East title in five years.
     As Toronto continued its dynastic sway in the East, in the West Oakland's
monopoly of three of the past four titles came a cropper. A combination of
cost-cutting practices, injuries, and aging contributed to the Athletics' last
place finish in the West; the team's batting and pitching performances were
the worst in the league. And Oakland's collapse opened the way for the
pennant-starved White Sox and Texas Rangers to battle for the title.
     With no league pennant since 1959 and only one divisional title (1983),
the White Sox, now ensconced in their new Comiskey Park, had been rebuilding
since 1990 under General Manager Ron Schueler. In 1992 the team finished with
86 wins under rookie manager Gene Lamont and this year the Sox deployed the
best pitching staff in the league (3.70). The starting corps was headed by
young "Black Jack" McDowell, the league's only 20-game winner with his 22-10,
3.40 ERA. Behind him, Alex Fernandez went 18-9, Wilson Alvarez 14-8, and
rookie Jason Bere 11-5; his mark included six straight wins after August 18.
Reliever Roberto Hernandez saved 38 games. Backing the staff was the good
fielding catcher Ron Karkovice, who took over after the great Carlton Fisk was
unceremoniously dismissed after setting the all-time record for games caught.
     Offensively the team batted .265 with 162 homers and was powered by young
first baseman Frank "The Big Hurt" Thomas who batted .317 with 41 homers and
128 RBIs. Infielder Robin Ventura's 27 homers and 94 RBIs augmented the attack
as did outfielder Lance Johnson's .311 hitting and 15 steals, and Tim Raine's
.306-16-54 effort. Incredibly, the once-promising Bo Jackson, the unfortunate
victim of a pro football injury that left him with an artificial hip, made the
team as a DH; in 85 games Jackson smote 16 homers and knocked in 45 runs.
     During most of the season the Sox were dogged by the Texas Rangers, a
club still looking for its first divisional title. A hard-hitting team, the
Rangers hit 181 homers to lead the league. Fronting the attack, the
twenty-three-year-old Juan "Igor" Gonzales batted .310, bashed 46 homers to
repeat as the league leader, and drove in 118 runs. First baseman Rafael
Palmeiro weighed in with .295-37-106 figures, but the team suffered the loss
of the injury-plagued Jose Canseco. Likewise the pitching staff suffered when
Nolan Ryan succumbed to injuries that ended his great career. Ryan's
twenty-seven years in the majors was matched only by the great "Pop" Anson.
     In the end pitching doomed the Rangers; although free agent Tom Henke
saved 40 games, the staff's 4.28 ERA was overly generous. A September surge
carried the White Sox to an eight-game victory.
     The 1993 ALCS divisional matchup pitted the White Sox against the Blue
Jays, with the latter's 95-67 mark topping the Chicagoans by only a single
game. This year's ALCS tussle went six games before the issue was decided. The
Blue Jays won the first two games in Chicago, but the White Sox evened the
match by taking the next two in Toronto's SkyDome. But Chicago's hopes were
dashed when they lost the next two games, including the decisive loss at home.
For the White Sox, their quirky, season-long tendency of losing home games
was their undoing. Ironically, Toronto's suspect pitching staff carried the
day with Guzman and Stewart each winning two games (the veteran Stewart
extended his undefeated record in postseason divisional play to 8 victories).
Thus, for a second straight season the champion Blue Jays represented the
American League in the World Series.


Campaigns of the Nineties:  The NL, 1991-1993

     In the decade just past, each NL team managed to win at least one
divisional race. But this unprecedented state of affairs came apart in the NL
East when the 1991 Pirates coasted to an easy 14 game victory over the
runner-up Cardinals while no other Eastern contender played winning baseball.
Bobby Bonilla's .302-18-100 and Barry Bonds' .292-25-116 heroics, coupled with
lefty John Smiley's 20-8 hurling, handed the Pirates an opportunity to avenge
their loss to the Reds in the 1990 LCS struggle.
     While preseason pundits picked the World Champion Reds to repeat in the
NL West, key players like Davis and Rijo went down with injuries, fielding
lapses consigned the team's defense to eighth place in the league, and the
pitching staff also ranked eighth in effectiveness. As a result the Reds
finished with a losing record. With the Reds out of contention, the Western
race became a dog fight between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the surprising
Atlanta Braves. Offensively the Dodgers were bolstered by the acquisition of
free agent outfielders Darryl Strawberry and Brett Butler. Thus fortified,
the Dodgers battled into the last week of the season before losing by one game
to the Braves.
     A last place finisher in the 1990 NL West fray, the Braves' metamorphosis
from worst to first was buoyed by the acquisition of free agent third baseman
Terry Pendleton, who led NL batters with a .319 average. Pendleton's 22
homers and 86 RBIs were augmented by lusty hitting from outfielders Ron Gant
and Dave Justice. What's more, the Braves' pitching staff, headed by Tom
Glavine (20-8), young Steve Avery (18-8), and John Smoltz (14-13), turned in
the league's third best ERA (3.49). In holding off the Dodgers, the Braves
overcame the loss of outfielder Otis Nixon, who was suspended for drug usage,
and an injury to second baseman Jeff Treadway. In plugging these gaps,
outfielder Lonnie Smith and infielder Mark Lemke performed ably during the
September struggles.
     In the hard fought struggle for the NL championship, lefty Avery emerged
as the MVP by notching two victories while Smoltz blanked the Pirates 1-0 in
the climactic seventh game played at Pittsburgh.
     Matched against the Minnesota Twins in the World Series, the Braves won
all three games in their home park and were sparked by Lemke's timely hitting.
At these games Atlanta fans incurred the enmity of organized Native American
protesters by their ritualized "tomahawk chop" gestures and their orchestrated
war whoops. However, the Braves lost all four games at the Minnesota
Metrodome, including the final game as Smith's mental error on the basepaths
cast him as the Series goat in his team's 1-0 loss.
     As the NL team girded for action in 1992, soothsayers eyed the Dodgers
and Mets as likely division winners. Each spent lavishly in the free agent
marketplace and the two boasted the highest payrolls in the majors at
$40-plus million. For their part the Dodgers acquired ailing outfielder Eric
Davis in a trade with the Reds and paid him a salary of $3.6 million, and for
nearly $4 million they signed free agent Tom Candiotti, a knuckleball pitcher
who played with the 1991 Blue Jays. Meanwhile the Mets dealt three key
players to the Royals to acquire star hurler Bret Saberhagen and infielder
Bill Pecota. And the Mets also snagged free agent Bobby Bonilla, the
versatile star of the Pirates, for a five-year contract calling for more than
$5 million a season. For added insurance the New Yorkers picked up free agent
first-baseman Eddie Murray for a two-year contract worth $7.5 million. But
when the dust settled at the end of the 1992 campaign, the Mets and the
Dodgers were horrendous losers. Both teams were bested by the low-payroll
Astros, who were forced to play the longest road trip in decades because of
the pre-empting presence of the Republican National Convention in Houston. In
their 26-game, 28-day jaunt the Astros went 12-14 and finished the season at
.500. By contrast the affluent Dodgers finished 63-99 for the majors' worst
record while the Mets edged the Phillies by only two games in escaping the NL
East cellar. Injuries to Davis and Strawberry, who combined for a mere 10
homers and 57 RBIS, hobbled the Dodgers while Saberhagen's injury racked the
Mets.
     As these plutocrats faded from contention the end result was status quo
ante bellum in both NL divisions. In the East the Pirates shook off Bonilla's
loss to snatch an early lead and mount a balanced attack that carried them to
96 victories, enough to stave off a September challenges by Montreal, which
finished 9 games behind. In repeating as division champs, the Pirates ranked
third in both pitching and batting, led in the latter department by catcher
Don Slaught (.345-4-37 in limited duty), and able outfielders Andy Van Slyke
(.324-14-89) and Barry Bonds (.311-34-103). Van Slyke ranked second among
league hitters and Bonds, a demon hitter in the stretch drive, ranked second
in homers and also stole 39 bases. Moreover, both outfielders were Gold Glove
winning fielders.
     In the West meanwhile, Atlanta posted a 98-64 record, the best in the
majors. In recording their second straight Western victory, the Braves relied
upon the best pitching staff in the league (3.14 ERA). At bat the Braves led
the league in homers (138). Third baseman Pendleton (.311-21-105) and
outfielder Otis Nixon (.294-2-22, with 41 stolen bases) headed the hitters.
Part-time outfielder Deion Sanders (.304-8-28), who doubled in brass as a
star defensive back with the National Football League's Atlanta Falcons,
emerged as a rising star, but his double duty as a pro athlete raised
questions about his future. Indeed, it was a football injury the previous
year that ended the career of another promising star, Bo Jackson.
     In a hard fought reprise of their 1991 duel for the NL championship, the
Braves took a 3-1 lead in games, but then had to fend off a spirited Pirate
charge. In the final game at Atlanta, the Braves, down 2-0 in the ninth
inning, mounted a historic rally. The winning hit came off the bat of rookie
pinch hitter Francisco Cabrera, who in the regular season had batted only ten
times. His single with two out in the ninth scored the tying and winning runs
and gave the Braves another shot at the World Series crown.
     Playing at home, the Braves won the opener, but lost the next night and
then dropped the first two games played in Toronto. Those last two losses
extended the Braves' skein of indoor World Series losses to six. Down 3 games
to 1, the Braves stayed alive as Lonnie Smith, the 1991 Series goat, smashed a
grand-slam homer to key a 7-2 victory. That domed stadium victory sent the
Braves back to their Atlanta longhouse where "tomahawk-chop" cheering fans
tried vainly to inspire a comeback victory. But after staging a ninth-inning
rally to stay alive in the sixth game, the Braves lost by a single run in 11
innings, thus becoming the first team to lose consecutive World Series matches
since 1978. And for a second straight time, Native Americans were smiling
over the result.
     For the expanded National League, now fourteen teams strong, the 1993
season was a smashing attendance success. Both newcomers, the Florida Marlins
and the Colorado Rockies, drew well, with the Rockies setting an all-time
major league attendance record by playing before 4,483,350 at their Mile High
Stadium in Denver. What's more, both tyros performed better than expected. The
Marlins' 64-98 record in the National League East topped the last-place,
dissolute New York Mets by five games, while the Western-based Rockies
eclipsed the cellar-dwelling, penurious Padres by six games.
     The fledgling Rockies also contributed to the National League's batting
eruption when first baseman Andres Galarraga batted .370, the best mark in the
majors. Galarraga's title was the first ever by a Venezuelan player. Some
attributed Colorado's .273 average, third best in the league, to the thin air
at Mile High Stadium. If so, visitors were also benefited, as the Rockies'
hurlers suffered the worst ERA in the majors.
     Elsewhere National League sluggers contributed lustily to the latest
big-bang offensive. Although American League bombers smote 2,074 homers to the
National League's 1,956, the National League output topped their 1992 figure
by nearly 700 while American League homer production (unaided by two extra
teams) was up fewer than 300 over 1992. San Francisco outfielder Bobby Bonds'
46 "dingers" led National League homerics and tied for the major league lead.
Atlanta's David Justice hit 40 and four others, including the Dodgers' rookie
catcher Mike Piazza, each hit at least 35.
     In mid-September, in the second game of a twin bill with Cincinnati,
outfielder Mark Whiten of the Cardinals hit four homers to become only the
twelfth player to turn the trick. But none of the forebears matched Whiten's
feat of driving in 12 runs in addition to his four blows. A few weeks earlier,
in a six-game outburst, Phil Plantier of the Padres hit five homers and drove
in 18 runs. One of Plantier's blasts, a three-run shot, helped San Diego set a
modern record by scoring 13 runs in a first-inning outburst.
     Yet another highlight came in early April when big Lee Smith, the aging
relief pitcher of the Cardinals, notched his 385th save to set a new all-time
record.
     The 1993 season also featured one of the most dramatic races in National
League history in the Western Division. The race matched the two winningest
teams in the majors, each with over 100 victories, as the Braves battled the
surging San Francisco Giants down to the final game of the season. Not since
1942, when the Cardinals and Dodgers staged a similar showdown, had there been
anything like it.
     Each of these evenly matched contenders had been strengthened by free
agent acquisitions. Gunning for a third straight pennant, the Atlanta Braves
added Cy Young Award winner Greg Maddux to a starting corps that was already
the best in the majors. But the Giants snared outfielder Barry Bonds, a
two-time Most Valuable Player, from the Pirates to add to their formidable
attack.
     The highest-paid player in the majors, Bonds surpassed his 1992
credentials by batting .336 and leading in homers (46) and RBIs (123).
Inspired by Bonds' presence, third baseman Matt Williams rebounded to bat
.294-38-110, and second baseman Robby Thompson hit .312-19-65. Given such
backing, starting pitchers John Burkett and Bill Swift won 43 games and lost
15 to head an otherwise shaky starting staff, bolstered by reliever Rod Beck's
48 saves.
     Pitching problems notwithstanding, the Giants took command in the West on
May 11 and held the high ground for 123 days. Indeed, as late as July 22 the
Giants led by 10 games and the team played at a 30-22 gait after the All-Star
Game break.
     Outclassed for most of the season, the Braves staged a memorable
counterattack by going 41-14 after the All-Star break. Leading the way was the
pitching corps. Except for John Smoltz, who fell to 15-11, the Braves' superb
starters lived up to their billing. Maddux went 20-10 with a 2.36 ERA to win
his second straight Cy Young Award, while Glavine went 22-6 and Avery 18-8.
     Offensively the Braves' surge was sparked by the acquisition of first
baseman Fred McGriff from the Padres on July 20. McGriff's .291-37-101 hitting
augmented that of slugging outfielders David Justice (40-120) and Ron Gant
(36-117), and third baseman Terry Pendleton (17-84), while speedy center
fielder Otis Nixon stole 47 bases.
     On September 12 the Braves took the lead, but the Giants twice rebounded
to draw even. The two teams were deadlocked on the last day of the season when
the Braves defeated the Rockies at home while the visiting Giants lost to the
Dodgers. By winning all thirteen games from the Rockies, the Braves became the
first National League team in this century to sweep a season series from an
opponent. In eking out a one-game victory, they won 104 games; for the Giants
it was small consolation to know that no other team in the majors topped their
103 victories.
     As the Giants and Braves staged their donnybrook in the West, the
Philadelphia Phillies rebounded from a last-place finish in 1992 to take
command in the East. A team of castoffs, the Phillies were put together by
General Manager Lee Thomas and guided by manager Jim Fregosi, an adroit
platooner. Over the winter the Phillies used the free agent route to sign
low-priced players like outfielders Jim Eisenreich, Pete Incaviglia, and Milt
Thompson, along with pitcher Danny Jackson. Such additions, and the team's
solid morale, provided the necessary ingredients for its upsurge.
     Grabbing an early lead, the team was never headed. In July the Cardinals
threatened, but by August 20 the Phillies led by 14 1/2 games. But when Felipe
Alou's young Montreal Expos won 18 of 20 games to cut the lead to five, the
specter of the Phillies' 1964 collapse rose to haunt the 1993 team. Strong
pitching by the Expos' rookie Kirk Ruether, and by Denny Martinez, Ken Hill,
and Jeff Fassero, led the assault, but the Phillies hung on to win 97 games
for a three-game victory.
     The Phillies batted .274, the second best mark in the league. Heading the
attack was outfielder Lenny Dykstra, who batted .305 and led the league in
hits (194), runs scored (143), and walks (129), and first baseman John Kruk
(.316-7-54). Catcher Darren Daulton's 24 homers produced 100 RBIs, third
baseman Dave Hollins batted .273-18-93, and young shortstop Kevin Stocker
batted .324 after a midseason call-up.
     The obvious weakness of the Phillies was its pitching staff whose 3.95
ERA ranked behind the Braves, Giants and Expos. Starters Tom Greene (16-4),
Curt Schilling (16-7), Terry Mulholland (12-9), and Jackson (12-11) were
backed by a shaky bullpen. Indeed, the staff's closer, Mitch "Wild Thing"
Williams, saved 43 games with a 3.34 ERA, but teammates and fans viewed the
lefty's every appearance as a nail-biting adventure.
     As the NLCS play began, the lordly Braves were picked as heavy favorites
to brush aside the hungry Phillies, whose last hurrah harked back to 1983 when
they won the pennant. Playing at home, the Phillies took the opener by a
single run, but the Braves retaliated and crushed the Phillies in the next two
games. Up two games to one, the Braves were looking to wrap up the series
before their home fans, who persisted in using their raucous tomahawk-chop
cheer. But the Phillies proceeded to win the next two games, each by a single
run. In the second of these victories, Phillies hurler Curt Schilling, who
pitched brilliantly in both his starts, nursed a 3-0 lead going into the
ninth. At that point the Braves rallied to tie the game against reliever "Wild
Thing" Williams. But in the tenth the resilient Phillies won the game on
"Dude" Dykstra's homer and a dramatic closing strikeout performance by aging
reliever Larry Andersen.
     Up three games to two, the homebound Phillies delighted their 62,000
partisans by nailing down the pennant with a 6-3 victory. The Phillies'
unprecedented achievement marked the first time in major league history that
two teams, each with over 100 seasonal wins, failed to win a pennant. And for
the shell-shocked Braves it marked the third straight year that their
elephantine labors produced a stillborn result.


Scanning the Future:  A Changing Baseball Landscape

     For all its pyrotechnics, the 1993 season is likely to be regarded by
nostalgia-minded fans as the end of an era. The 1994 season will see another
alteration of the baseball landscape, a prospect as shocking to purists as was
the advent of the divisional format back in 1969.
     Under the new scheme devised by the owners and accepted by the Players
Association, the fourteen teams in each major league will realigned into three
divisions--an Eastern, Central, and Western branch within each league. In the
American League the East will house Toronto, New York, Baltimore, Detroit, and
Boston; the Central, Chicago, Kansas City, Cleveland, Minnesota, and
Milwaukee; the West, Texas, Seattle, California, and Oakland. In the National
League the East will contain Atlanta, Philadelphia, Montreal, Florida, and New
York; the Central, St. Louis, Houston, Chicago, Cincinnati, and Pittsburgh;
the West, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Colorado, and San Diego. Supposedly,
each league's playing schedule will provide a balanced 162-game format.
     In each league the three-way alignment will add another divisional winner
and will require another tier of playoff competition. This third playoff round
will pit the three divisional winners of each league plus a "wild card" team
(the runner-up team with the best record) in two best-of-five-game tussles,
with the winners moving into the second round. That round, of course, is the
familiar LCS which will determine the league champion and lead to the World
Series.
     In theory the new scheme opens the door for a nonwinner to go all the way
and possibly win a league title and a world championship. A derivation from
pro football's successful scheme, the revolutionary plan is certain to evoke
immediate lamentations from purists who should, however, remember that the two
divisional systems of 1969 marked a similar departure from tradition. To show
how the new system would work, if the 1993 Giants (winners of 103 games) and
the Yankees (winners of 88 games in the American League) were to have posted
their winning runner-up records in 1994, both would qualify for a wild card.
     This latest landscape change was a product of the recent network
television deal which the owners concluded with NBC and ABC in May 1993. The
previous four-year $1 billion-plus pact with CBS expired after the 1993 World
Series, with CBS claiming losses of $500 million. When CBS offered to renew
the contract at $129 million a year, chastened owners, who faced a revenue
shortfall of $145 million a year, voted overwhelmingly to accept the new pact
with ABC and NBC. The new pact calls for regionalized telecasts of seasonal
games, primetime telecasts of postseasonal play, and revenue-sharing between
the major league teams and the networks. What's more, the pact requires that
the major leagues and the networks create a company to help sell advertising
and baseball sponsorship.
     A radical departure from the past, the new scheme by no means guarantees
the sure windfall that clubs received under the old CBS pact. Indeed, there is
no guaranteed up front money; should the TV milk cow fail to produce, there is
a strong likelihood that declining revenues will arrest the player salary
spiral that saw average salaries of 1993 climbing to a new peak of $1.5
million.
     These revolutionary developments are certain to affect the course of
negotiations when the Players Association and the owners meet to hammer out a
new Basic Agreement in 1994. Among other issues being debated, there is a
matter of continuing arbitration of player salaries, the question of players
participating in a revenue sharing plan, and possible salary caps.
     Of course, one must not jump to the conclusion that major league baseball
is a declining industry. On the positive side, the price of franchises
continues to soar. In August 1993 the Orioles fetched a team sports record of
$173 million when offered for sale at auction. A group headed by Baltimore
lawyer Pete Angelos attracted a flock of willing celebrity investors including
film directors Barry Levinson, pro tennis star Pam Shriver, and novelist Tom
Clancy.
     On another bright note, attendance at 1993 major league games topped 70
million, a whopping rise over 1993. And with Texas and Cleveland due to occupy
new parks in 1994, fan interest in these cities is likely to rise.
     To be sure, the game still has its divisive problems. In 1993 the game
was conducted without a Commissioner, but few fans mourned the omission. When
the owners' search committee finally comes up with a new leader, it seems
likely that his role will be that of the game's ceremonial representative and
perhaps that of final arbiter in interleague disputes. One such dispute is the
American League's continuing, successful unilateral deployment of designated
hitters. Indeed, 1993 marked the twentieth anniversary of the rule that still
incites impassioned debate.
     And another problem, no less awesome for its inevitability, is to find
replacements for departing superstars. Truly major league baseball will be
hard put to find new heroes to replace the likes of three 1993 retirees Nolan
Ryan, George Brett, and Carlton Fisk. While each is destined for speedy
accession to the Hall of Fame, the passing of this trio darkens the baseball
firmament.
     Still, for all its uncertainties, as the major league game of 1994 moves
into an uncharted new landscape, fans would do well to remember that for over
six score years of the game's history similar challenges have been met and
transcended. and more often than not, each changing landscape has afforded
another positive forward step for the nation's pastime.