Survival.

Perhaps the best thing that can be said about Major League Baseball in the 1980s is that it survived. Although the decade witnessed superb individual and team performances on the field, it was probably more notable for its labor disputes, strikes, threats of strikes, owner-collusion scandals, many substance abuse revelations, the Pete Rose betting affair, and, in general, the shortsightedness of those who ran the game. But despite these and other serious problems, baseball somehow remained vibrant and popular. In 1980, for instance, a record forty-three million people paid to see Major League Baseball games, income from baseball television contracts accounted for a record 30 percent of the game's $500 million revenue, and television ratings for the World Series had never been higher. Over the course of the decade all of these leading indicators would continue to improve, which suggests that baseball's place as the national pastime...