The 1994 MLB Strike: Tony Gwynn Was Hitting .394, the Expos Had the Best Record in Baseball, and Then Everything Stopped.
On August 11, 1994, Tony Gwynn played his last game of the season. He was hitting .394. He had gone 49-for-127 (.426) over his previous 29 games. He was hitting .439 over his final 14. Ted Williams, then 75 years old, had told Gwynn that winter: “If you make a run at .400, I’ll be there to see it.” The players struck the next morning. Williams and Gwynn are both gone now. Nobody has hit .400 since.
The 1994 baseball season lasted 112 games and produced no postseason, no World Series, and no resolution to any of the storylines that had made it one of the most compelling seasons in the sport’s modern history. The players struck on August 12. The owners canceled the season on September 14. It was the first time the World Series had not been played since 1904. It would be the last time a generation of fans fully trusted the game. The ghost of what 1994 might have been is more interesting than most seasons that actually happened.
——— THE SEASON ———
WHAT WAS HAPPENING WHEN EVERYTHING STOPPED
1994 MLB Strike: The Season That Was Killed at Its Most Interesting Moment
The 1994 season had produced a concentration of compelling storylines that would have made the final six weeks of the regular season and the postseason genuinely historic. Four of them were, in their own way, once-in-a-generation events happening simultaneously.
Tony Gwynn of the San Diego Padres was hitting .394, the highest batting average recorded in the major leagues since Ted Williams hit .406 in 1941. Gwynn was famous for finishing seasons strong. Over his final 14 games before the strike, he had batted .439. The feeling around baseball was unambiguous: if anyone alive was going to hit .400 in the modern game, it was Gwynn, in 1994, in September. He did not get the chance. He was philosophical about it afterward. “People look at this as individuals not having a chance to break records,” he said, “but guys have sacrificed careers to make things better for a lot of young baseball players. Getting an agreement is more important than hitting .400.” He added: “I’m kind of upset I’m not going to get those extra six points. But I’ve done everything I wanted to offensively this year.”
Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants had 43 home runs. At the pace he was hitting, he was on track to challenge Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61, set in 1961. Ken Griffey Jr. had 40. The two most exciting power hitters in the game were converging on a record that had stood for 33 years and would eventually be broken under very different circumstances four years later.
The Montreal Expos had the best record in baseball at 74-40. They had Larry Walker, Moisés Alou, Marquis Grissom, Pedro Martínez, Ken Hill, and a dominant bullpen. They were, by most accounts, the best team in the sport that season and among the best in the National League in a generation. The New York Yankees led the American League East and were positioned for their first postseason appearance since 1981, which would have accelerated the arrival of the dynasty that defined the rest of the decade. The Cleveland Indians were in their first season at Jacobs Field, building behind a young core that would eventually reach the World Series. None of it happened. The season stopped on August 12 and did not resume.
“Imagine a single, magical baseball season in which Ted Williams hits .406, Roger Maris clubs 61 home runs, and the Miracle Mets of New York win the World Series. Now imagine if that season is killed off halfway through, stripped of the Fall Classic and all its grand achievements — to be forever lost in the tomb of unknown milestones. Welcome to 1994.”
——— THE STRIKE ———
WHY IT HAPPENED AND WHAT IT COST
1994 MLB Strike: What Caused It, What It Canceled, and How Bad the Damage Actually Was
The 1994 MLB strike began on August 12 over a labor dispute between the players’ union and team owners. The central issue was the owners’ proposal for a salary cap, which the players’ union rejected. The strike lasted 232 days, extending into the 1995 season and forcing a delayed start to that year as well. It was the longest work stoppage in the history of North American professional sports. The World Series was canceled for the first time since 1904 — something that two world wars, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, and the September 11 attacks had not managed to do.
The immediate financial damage was significant. ABC, NBC, and MLB had formed a joint venture called The Baseball Network to broadcast games nationally. The strike cost that venture an estimated $595 million in advertising revenue. The joint venture ended after the 1995 season when both networks, stung by their losses, pulled out. Per-game attendance dropped 20% in 1995, falling from 31,632 per game to 25,260. Fans who returned to games in 1995 brought their anger with them: early accounts from that season describe fans booing players, throwing objects onto the field, and wearing shirts with dollar signs where team logos had been.
-
Gerald Smiley on the Mental Game: Five Years in Pro Ball, Seven as a Scout, and Why the Brain Wins Every Time.
Gerald Smiley pitched 5 years for the Rangers, scouted for MLB, and coaches the mental game. Nine Innings In, ep. 5.
-
Nine Innings In: Stephen Nelson on Calling Dodgers Games, the Sounds Nobody Records, and the Pitch That Creates a Baseball Fan.
Steven Nelson calls Dodgers games on SportsNet LA. On Nine Innings In, he talks about the sounds of the game, the 2005 White Sox, and cotton candy skies.
-
Nine Innings In: Steve Perrault and the Beautiful Mess of Being a Red Sox Fan
Steve Perrault of Section Ten built 613 episodes out of one LinkedIn message and a dream. Nine Innings In ep 3, the Red Sox, Griffey, and Fenway at its best
The longest-lasting casualty was the Montreal Expos. The 74-40 team that should have won the 1994 World Series instead watched its roster dismantle over the following years, as diminished attendance and damaged finances forced the front office to trade away its best players. Pedro Martínez went to Boston. Marquis Grissom went to Atlanta. Larry Walker left in free agency. The Expos never recovered. In 2004, they became the Washington Nationals. Ask any Expos fan what killed baseball in Montreal. The answer is always the same: August 12, 1994.
——— THE RECOVERY ———
HOW BASEBALL CAME BACK
1994 MLB Strike: Cal Ripken, McGwire and Sosa, and How Baseball Earned Its Fans Back
The recovery was slower than anyone wanted and faster than many expected. When the 1995 season finally started in late April, the game was wounded but not broken. Three things pulled it back.
The first was Cal Ripken Jr. The Baltimore Orioles shortstop had played every game since May 29, 1982. On September 6, 1995, he played his 2,131st consecutive game, breaking Lou Gehrig’s record of 2,130 that had stood for 56 years. The record-breaking game drew national attention and generated the kind of unified sentiment that baseball desperately needed: something to celebrate, something with no controversy attached, something that connected the sport to the idea of showing up and doing the work regardless of what was happening around you. “Cal Ripken kept baseball alive after the strike year,” the assessment went, and it was not much of an exaggeration.
The second was the home run chase of 1998. Mark McGwire of the St. Louis Cardinals and Sammy Sosa of the Chicago Cubs spent the summer of 1998 pursuing and then breaking Roger Maris’ single-season record of 61, the same record that Matt Williams had been chasing when the 1994 strike ended his season at 43. McGwire finished with 70. Sosa finished with 66. The chase was a national event, broadcast on every platform, discussed in every sports bar. It brought back fans who had walked away in 1994. What happened afterward, when the steroid context of those performances became clear, complicated the narrative. But in the summer of 1998, it worked.
The third was infrastructure: new ballparks, expanded media rights, and the development of what became MLB Advanced Media. Between 1994 and 2013, MLB revenues grew from $1.9 billion to $8 billion — an increase of more than 400%. The game recovered economically by any measure. Whether it recovered culturally is a more complicated question. Whenever a baseball labor dispute has flared in the years since, the phrase “1994 strike” has been invoked immediately as the cautionary tale: push too far, and even the national pastime can vanish overnight. The game knows what it cost. It has been paying that bill ever since.
“People look at this as individuals not having a chance to break records … but guys have sacrificed careers to make things better for a lot of young baseball players. As far as I’m concerned, getting an agreement is more important than hitting .400.” Tony Gwynn, after the 1994 players’ strike ended his season at .394.
SABR · August 11, 1994: Tony Gwynn Ends Strike-Shortened Season at .394 ·
Gwynn at .394, hitting .439 over his final 14 games. Williams at 43 home runs. The Expos at 74-40. The Yankees in first place in the American League for the first time since 1981. August 12, 1994. The season canceled. No World Series. Twenty percent attendance drop. The Expos dismantled. Pedro to Boston. And then Cal Ripken on September 6, 1995, taking a victory lap around Camden Yards, and baseball beginning the long work of earning it all back.
It mostly worked. The ghosts are still there.
RELATED ON SIDELINE SPORTS
→ Nine Innings In: Steven Nelson on Calling Dodgers Games and Baseball’s Sounds — Baseball
→ Nine Innings In: Steve Perrault on Gut Feeling and the Red Sox — Baseball
→ Nine Innings In: Xavier Scruggs on What Baseball Looks Like at Its Best — Baseball
→ Nine Innings In: The Baseball Fandom Podcast on Sideline Sports — Baseball
