When the 1994 baseball season was canceled on Sept. 14 after a players strike that began in mid-August, former Commissioner Peter Ueberroth referred to it as “the biggest ‘E’ of all time.”
“The losers are the fans and there is no winner,” Ueberroth said. “1994: the season that struck itself out.”
It took years for the game to regain the trust of fans, and some haven’t returned. Life goes on, after all, and there’s always football.
Baseball eventually rediscovered its bearings, and now is a $10 billion industry with franchise values growing exponentially and some stars signing long-term deals of $200 million and higher.