Baseball

Tale of Two Extremes. Major league baseball went from the depths of despair to the heights of joy, from disheartenment to jubilation, during the final decade of the twentieth century. Felipe Alou, coach of the Montreal Expos, said, "Sometimes, something has to almost die, like baseball did, for the miracle to take place." Greed and money nearly caused the downfall of the sport. Strikes and work stoppages were nothing new to professional sports, and baseball had experienced its share of both, befitting its rank as the eldest of major league athletic enterprises in the United States. But never before had a World Series been canceled, as it was in 1994 because of a 272-day strike by players that forced the cancellation of 920 games. The contest between owners and players focused on salary caps and revenue sharing. When baseball finally resumed, it did...