Lords of the Realm Column

Major League Baseball discovered in 1994 that the only thing worse than having a bad commissioner is having no commissioner at all.

When the professional league needed guidance most, there was no control between owners and players. No love from the U.S. Congress, who's health care and fiscal initiatives prevented baseball's antitrust exemption bill from reaching the floor. No consensus among the commissioner search committee, who cared more about the labor contract than finding a replacement for the ousted Fay Vincent.

The end result -- the strike of '94 -- was simply inevitable. The heavyweight fight between baseball's greedy Lords and its unwavering labor union culminated the only way it could that season -- with black eyes, bruised egos, and no baseball.

No one seemed to care less about baseball's shutdown than the interim commissioner, Bud Selig, who was too busy basking in luxury boxes to look out at the chaos from the center of the baseball world. His transition from owner to temporary king of America's pastime went as smoothly as a call from Single-A ball to the big leagues.

Young players ignored the decades of work put in by former Union head Marvin Miller, arguably the most influential character the players ever had in dealing with the Lords. Time and time again, Miller rallied baseball's actors against the directing owners. In 1994, he might as well have been a dinosaur to the new generation of major league players -- practically extinct.

Most of all, the tension between the owners and players union was simply too great to overcome from the outset in 1994. Without Miller, the players lacked leadership and the necessary guidance to take on the Lords. Without Vincent, the owners squabbled over the salary cap, player contracts, and their interim commissioner's most declared desire -- to leave the position in someone else's hands long-term.

If the commissioner search committee couldn't even settle on Vincent's successor, how could it prevent the inevitable strike of 1994?

The truth is that the wrong people were running baseball at the right time.

Some argue the strike could have been prevented. The circumstances suggest otherwise.

The 1994 work stoppage was the ultimate result of seven deadly decades of sin -- especially greed -- from both sides. The players wanted more guaranteed money. The owners wanted cheaper contracts. They both wanted power over the fields in which they played.

It was especially hard to swallow for a game that had endured such tumultuous history. The players survived collusion. The owners, particularly George Steinbrenner, survived mega-contracts the likes of Reggie Jackson and Will Clark. The entire league had even survived the firing of Vincent, if only for a few months.

But the strike was inevitable. Without a new labor contract, there would be no guidance or urgency towards electing a new commissioner. Without the help of Congress, there would be no outside influence to push baseball's owners past the tipping point of dollars-and-cents. With everyone too busy worrying about money to listen, the fans cries to play the '94 season would fall faint.

The strike of 1994 was the classic case of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

In this case, after decades of printing, the Denver Mint had finally collided with baseball's slowest, most selfish minds.

Baseball, as a result of an inevitable one-year collapse, has never been the same.