Reliving The Strike

The last baseball game I attended before the strike was at Yankee Stadium. Me and my co-workers for the summer were given complimentary tickets, along with several other youth and teen groups, in the left-centerfield bleachers. I defiantly wore my Mets hat to the game, which pitted the Yankees against the Baltimore Orioles. Wearing the hat of New York’s National League team proved to be the right move, since former Mets centerfielder Tommie Agee was in attendance, signing autographs in the bleachers; his appearance was part of the program that allowed us to get into The House That Ruth Built gratis. I still have that hat, which Agee signed on the green underside of the bill.

Back then, I lived for baseball. Well, I still live for baseball – make my living in baseball, even – but, in those days, I was obsessed. Every winter, I’d suffer through pangs of withdrawal because there wasn’t any baseball on television; I’d scour Sports Illustrated for any blurb or mention of the National Pastime. I eagerly anticipated the Mets’ first spring training game, which was always televised on WWOR TV. I loved WWOR’s spring training open – which featured a wooden crate filled with oranges that would be hammered shut and, after a time lapse, reopened to reveal that the oranges had turned into baseballs – not only because it was pure genius, but also because it signaled that another baseball season was around the corner.

But now, there was a possibility that the baseball off-season would be longer than ever. The team owners and the players’ union were at an impasse in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement and a strike was imminent. None of the so-called experts seemed to think the strike would be brief, although no one had any idea how long it would last. A few weeks? A few months? Into the postseason? Into the following season? Anything seemed to be possible except, of course, a quick resolution.

The strike deadline set by the players was four days away and in the back of my mind as I watched former Mets pitcher Sid Fernandez staked to an early 4-0 lead, only to leave in the sixth with the score tied. I was sitting behind the Orioles bullpen and just missed getting the baseball reliever Jim Poole tossed into the crowd when he entered the game in the 10^th. Mark Eichhorn, who had been warming up alongside Poole, teased and tantalized the fans who asked him for a ball; it seemed like poetic justice when Eichhorn gave up Randy Velarde’s walk-off RBI single in the 11^th to lose the game for Baltimore.

Three days later, when I turned on my green-and-white radio on August 11^th, 1994 to listen to the Mets play in Philadelphia (the game was televised on SportsChannel, and Mom had yet to sign us up for cable television), I was hoping the game lasted forever. It didn’t, but it came close; Ricky Jordan’s walk-off RBI single in the 15^th won it for the Phillies. And I turned off my radio and wondered when I’d get to hear Major League Baseball again.

I finished the month at a summer camp in western Massachusetts, where I spent a week and a half canoeing, hiking and pitching tents in the wilderness. We were only allowed to shower every few days and there was no access to television or radio. Occasionally, our travels through the Berkshires and Adirondacks would take us by a newsstand or a newspaper vending machine, which would lead me to check the front page of the paper to see if the strike had been resolved. And, in every instance, there was a front-page headline about the strike. And, in every instance, that front-page headline indicated that the players were still on the picket line. Chris, a Chicago White Sox fan who served as my camp group’s counselor that summer before resuming his studies at a small, liberal-arts college in Minnesota in the fall, picked up on my routine. “Anything?” he would ask, after he saw me peek at newsprint. I’d shake my head. Nothing needed to be said.

The routines and rhythms of my sophomore year of high school helped pass the time, but the strike was never far from my mind. Those of us who are baseball crazed tend to gravitate to other seam heads, and it was all we talked about. I mean, it was all we could talk about, since the strike eliminated typical fall conversations about the postseason – which wound up being cancelled – and free agency. None of us really understood all of the issues at play; we were just hopeless baseball romantics hoping and praying that our beau would return post haste.

I had Biology class with Jonah Parsoff, who loved baseball almost as much as I did. Almost. Jonah also claimed to know more baseball trivia than me, which simply wasn’t possible. So, I offered Jonah a challenge: I would give him five baseball trivia questions every day and I guaranteed he would never get all five of them correct. So, for about two months, I spent the first few minutes of Biology writing trivia questions on a piece of loose-leaf paper, which I would covertly pass to Jonah in the front of the class (I always sat in the back of all of my classes, much to my mother’s chagrin. “You wear glasses” she would ask, “why are you sitting in the back?”). Jonah would attempt to answer my questions and slip the paper back to me. I don’t think he ever got more than three right; I know he never went five for five. I took delight in Jonah throwing his head back in frustration once I gave him the correct answers – a gesture that would prompt Mr. Young, our Biology teacher, to ask “Jonah, is something wrong?” mid-lecture. And, thus, my place atop the baseball-trivia throne was secure.

While I spent most of my time in Biology goofing off, I took Global Studies seriously; I always took great interest in history, which was partially responsible for my love of baseball trivia. However, I was convinced that my teacher, Mrs. Goodman, was assigning us papers at an insane rate that was unprecedented in the annals of high school history. However, I had little issue with one assignment from Mrs. Goodman that allowed us to write a 5-page paper on a current event selected from a pre-approved list when I saw that the list included the baseball strike. I immediately set to work on my masterpiece, in which detailed the follies of both the owners and the players’ union. My heartfelt missive earned me an A, and some unexpected praise from Mrs. Goodman; she told me I was an excellent writer and I should consider working for my high school’s monthly newspaper. I never thought of myself as an above-average writer and seeing my byline in print never occurred to me. But wouldn’t it be cool to write about sports? I thought to myself. And, after approaching one of the sports editors, I became a full-fledged sports journalist, penning important pieces on weighty topics – like the upcoming cross-country season – much to the delight of readers everywhere. At least that’s what I told myself.

My Pulitzer still hadn’t arrived in early March, when Dad and I plopped in front of the television to watch the Mets’ first spring training game, against the Yankees. Except it wasn’t the Mets, at least not the Mets with which we were familiar. The broadcast on WWOR opened with Ralph Kiner and Tim McCarver explaining that they weren’t going to pretend that the upcoming game featuring replacement players was to the Major League Baseball standards fans were accustomed. Thank goodness, because it would’ve been hard to pretend. Nevertheless, Dad and I were glued to the set because we had no idea what to expect from these people donning Mets and Yankees uniforms. An over-the-hill Doug Sisk, the frequent target of Mets fans’ derision when he was a reliever in the 1980s, started the game and was as uninspiring as I’d remembered.

I don’t recall the score, but I do recall the Yankees led by a narrow margin when the bottom of the ninth dawned and they summoned a pitcher named Mike Pitz to get the last three outs. After we finished making fun of his last name, we watched Pitz load the bases with two outs, bringing up Lou Thornton. The day before, we saw a local sportscast where Thornton proclaimed he didn’t get a fair shake when he was with the non-replacement Mets a few years prior and he became a replacement player to prove he belonged in the Majors.

“Well Lou,” Dad opined as Thornton dug in. “This is your chance.”

Thornton worked the count full before swinging and missing at a pitch that was nowhere near the strike zone. Game over.

I don’t have vivid memories of where I was or what I was doing when the strike ended, probably because the ending seemed so anticlimactic. And it didn’t really end, per sé; future Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor issued an injunction against the owners, which prevented them from implementing new labor rules and from using replacement players. Thus, the owners lost a significant amount of their leverage and were essentially forced to work something out with the players. Shortly thereafter, a truncated spring training preceded a truncated regular season and the love of my life was back. Unlike many fans, I didn’t hold any animosity toward the players or the owners; even though I didn’t understand all of the issues that led to a strike, I figured both sides were probably each at fault to a certain extent. Regardless, I just wanted to see baseball. The strike was the first test of my passion for baseball and, strangely, it increased my love for the game. If I could still obsess over baseball even after dealing with the postseason being canceled for the first time in 90 years and after months of uncertainty, then nothing would mute my love for the National Pastime. And nothing has.

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The Beginnings Of A Journalist

When the Major League Baseball players went on strike in August, 1994, it might as well have been the end of the world for me, a 15-year-old who was obsessed with baseball. I liked other sports, but my life didn’t revolve around them like it did around baseball. And the thought that there would be no games indefinitely was more heartbreaking to me than finding out the girl I had the biggest crush on didn’t want to go out with me. I was used to being rejected by the opposite sex but I wasn’t used to being rejected by baseball, my only true love as an adolescent.

The last game played before the strike by my favorite team, the New York Mets, could go on forever, as far as I was concerned. The Mets did come close to granting my wish, as it took them nearly four hours and 15 innings to lose 2-1 to the Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium. I listened to the game on the radio and was heartbroken when the Phillies’ Ricky Jordan singled in Billy Hatcher with the winning run not only because it meant my team had lost but because it meant baseball was lost for the foreseeable future.

I was still heartbroken that fall, as I went through my sophomore year at Bronx High School of Science in New York City. One of my classes was Global Studies, which was taught by Mrs. Goodman. With her round, horn-rimmed glasses, white pearls and practical sweaters and skirts, Mrs. Goodman looked more like an Ivy League professor than a high school teacher. Those of us in her classes thought she assigned work like an Ivy League professor; I can’t recall another instructor who assigned as many papers as she did, even in college. Mrs. Goodman thought it was important that we write and write a lot. However, she also handed our work back to us promptly, always with detailed comments and corrections. Most of the papers Mrs. Goodman assigned related to what we were learning in class. However, she did assign one paper in which she allowed us to write 4-5 pages on a current event. Of course, I wrote about the baseball strike.

I wish I still had a copy of that paper on the strike because it’s one of the best things I’ve written. From what I remember, the crux of my thesis was that both the players’ union and the owners had serious flaws in their arguments. I remember writing that I liked the idea of revenue sharing amongst teams to restore competitive balance, but doubted that the owners and players would agree to a workable model that would truly level the playing field between small- and big-market franchises. My passion for the sport and frustration over the strike shone through in my writing, without me coming off as just some angry fan. I took the time to consider both sides’ arguments, weighing the pros and cons of each.

Mrs. Goodman gave me an A on the paper. Later, she pulled me aside after class.

“You’re a very good writer,” she said to me.

“Umm, well, thanks,” was my eloquent reply.

“You should write for the school newspaper,” Mrs. Goodman continued. “The writing in that paper really needs improvement. They need someone there who can really write, like you.”

I was stunned. No teacher had ever told me I was a good writer. My mother, a fourth-grade teacher for most of my childhood, was constantly harping on me to write better and to write more often. Mom always told me I was a good writer or, at the very least, had the potential to be a good writer, but I didn’t believe her. Besides, when I thought of writers, I thought of people who wrote fiction and poetry. Even though I read a lot of books growing up, I never thought of myself as someone who could write like the authors I read. I never knew what to write about and I didn’t have stories in my head that I felt a dire need to put on paper. As I got older, I started to read more non-fiction, but I never considered that I, too, could write non-fiction.

Once my surprise subsided, I started thinking about what Mrs. Goodman mentioned about the school newspaper. Science Survey came out monthly and, like most newspapers, had a sports section. I like sports, I thought, so maybe it would be fun to write about them. I wouldn’t have to think about what to write, since someone would tell me what to write about, so how hard could that be? Early in my junior year, I got in touch with one of the Science Survey sports editors, who asked me to write an article about the boys and girls indoor track teams. I was excited. My first assignment! I was officially a journalist!

I beamed with pride when my five-paragraph summary of the indoor track teams appeared in the December 1995 issue of Science Survey under the headline “Indoor Track Teams Look Promising” (I cannot claim credit for the pithy headline). I read and re-read the article several times, spending copious amounts of time staring at my name. However, I didn’t think I’d arrived; I felt my journalism career was just beginning and I wanted to improve. After I realized how hard it was to read the hastily-written scribbles in my notepad after talking to the indoor track coach, I purchased a tape recorder from Radio Shack for subsequent interviews. I didn’t talk to any athletes for my indoor track story, but I resolved to speak with at least one or two athletes on each of the teams I covered, in addition to the head coach, thereafter. I also didn’t go to a single indoor track meet before I wrote about them, another mistake I vowed not to repeat.

Bronx Science is a prestigious academic school that draws its 2,800 students from all five boroughs, many of whom have one- or two-hour commutes each way via subway and/or bus. So, even though Bronx Science had a very vibrant athletic scene and there were varsity teams in sports ranging from basketball and baseball to fencing and handball (but no football team, much to the consternation of many of Bronx Science’s male students), very few students stuck around to watch athletic contests after school, all of the teams playing in relative anonymity. I was one of the handful of Bronx Science students who lived a short walk from the school, which made it easier for me to see teams play several times before I wrote about them. Also, because the teams didn’t get much attention, the coaches and athletes were more than happy to talk to me. I felt I filled an important role by telling the school about the athletic exploits of our fellow students.

It didn’t take me long to realize I loved being a journalist who covered sports. I enjoyed talking with my classmates and with the coaches; after a while, some of the coaches and athletes would ask me when I would write about their teams (I had one friend on the boys golf team who never understood why I didn’t write about him and his teammates’ exploits every month). I was getting better and more confident with each assignment, and was even asked to be the sports editor of Science Survey my senior year (I declined, because I wanted to focus on my own writing and had little desire to manage a staff). I began to think about journalism as a possible career.

It’s funny for me to look back and think that, when I began researching colleges as a sophomore, I thought I wanted to study computer engineering or computer science, because I enjoyed working with and programming computers. As an adult, I’ve met a few computer scientists and computer engineers, and I know I wouldn’t have been cut out for that line of work. I’d always been a good math student until struggling mightily in my Advanced Placement Calculus class senior year, which convinced me that any line of work involving very advanced and complex mathematical computation wasn’t my cup of tea. By the time I started applying to colleges, I knew I wanted to study journalism, but chose to seek admission in broadcast journalism programs instead of print journalism ones. I liked writing, but I felt print was a dying medium (I was half right: traditional newspapers and magazines have continued their decline, but I didn’t foresee the proliferation of blogs and the explosion of news and sports content online). On the other hand, broadcast journalism seemed to be expanding; the concept of digital cable – and hundreds of new channels – was just being introduced and radio stations were beginning to stream their broadcasts online, with some internet-only stations popping up. Plus, I’d always liked to talk; as a child, I aspired to be a conductor on the New York City subways, since they got to announce all of the stops over the public address system.

A few months ago, I spoke with former Kansas City Royals pitcher Jeff Montgomery about the 1994 baseball strike, which wound up lasting 232 days and also delayed the start of the 1995 season. Montgomery, a standout relief pitcher for the Royals at the time, was also the team’s union representative, so he was more involved in the collective bargaining agreement negotiations than most. After discussing several of the issues that prolonged the strike, I told Montgomery I was thankful that he and the players went on the picket line, because it helped start me on my current career path. I am also thankful for Mrs. Goodman’s guidance and for her letter of recommendation, which helped get me admitted into Syracuse University as a broadcast journalism student. Who knows if I ever would’ve found a career I love otherwise.

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