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Baseball strike halts best-ever Expos team

Broadcast Date: Aug. 12, 1994

The Montreal Expos are a dying franchise — pitiful payroll, low attendance, middling results on the field. But in 1994, a long period of "rebuilding" finally yields results. The Expos lead the National League East, six games ahead of the Atlanta Braves (a team that spends twice as much on player salaries.) Attendance is up, and many think the Expos are a lock for the World Series. Then a labour dispute brings the season to a screeching halt.

The Major League Baseball strike affects many cities, but it is particularly devastating to Montreal. Its impressive young team is just coming into its own, lining up a pennant run on the heels of back-to-back Toronto Blue Jays championships. In this clip, sports commentator Dino Sisto is optimistic that there will still be a World Series (such hopes would later be dashed.) He also believes the strike won't be the Expo's death knell (instead, it marked the start of a slow demise.)

Baseball strike halts best-ever Expos team

• The 1994-95 strike was the eighth and most serious work stoppage in baseball history. It lasted from Aug. 12, 1994, to March 31, 1995, ending the 1994 season and delaying the start of the 1995 season. A total of 938 games were cancelled.
• Along with the usual issues of minimum salaries, arbitration and free agency, there was a complete impasse over the owners' demand for a salary cap (a maximum amount a team can spend per year on its combined players' salaries).

• With the strike underway, owners imposed a salary cap unilaterally. The players responded by declaring all unsigned players free agents. The league also locked out umpires.
• Further embittering the conflict, an arbitrator determined that in previous years, owners had been colluding to keep salaries down by agreeing not to engage in bidding wars for top players.

• On Oct. 14, acting baseball commissioner Bud Selig and Players Association executive director Donald Fehr met with U.S. President Bill Clinton in an attempt to break the impasse over implementing a salary cap, to no avail. Also unsuccessful were a Clinton-imposed deadline and federal mediator, and five bills introduced into Congress.

• The 1994-1995 season marked the first time in 91 years that there was no World Series. After 34 days of work stoppage, the league cancelled the remainder of season, including the championship. It was its first championship cancellation since the World Series began in 1903. (However, in 1904 there was no series, because New York Giants owner John T. Brush refused to let his National League champions play against the Boston Americans of "the inferior American League.")

• In the end, the U.S. National Labour Relations board ended the strike by forcing owners to withdraw their unilateral changes. Both sides were told to play for the next two seasons under the previous collective agreement.
• Despite the strike ending, the owners had not yet settled their dispute with umpires. On April 28, 1995, the Ontario Labour Board ruled against the use of replacement umpires, effective May 3 (after the end of a Jays homestand.)

• The Ontario Labour Board decision, along with growing complaints about the performance of the replacement umpires, helped hasten an agreement between owners and umpires. A five-year deal was reached on May 1, 1995. The last vestiges of the baseball strike ended on May 3, when regular umpires returned to work — the day the Ontario ruling was to take effect.

• The 1994 Expos are widely regarded as the best team the franchise ever fielded. Heading into the strike they had a league-best record of 74-40, giving them a six-game lead in their division (the Blue Jays were third in theirs, with a 55-60 record.)
• Core Expos players included Larry Walker, Moises Alou, Cliff Floyd, Marquis Grissom, Pedro Martinez, Ken Hill, Jeff Shaw, John Wetteland, Wil Cordero and Darrin Fletcher — all in their twenties. Five of them made that year's all-star game.

• The following season the Expos finished fifth in their division. Most of the team's core players were traded to other teams in the three years following the strike.

• The team's financial woes dragged on for another decade. Attendance continued to decline. By 2004, the team attracted just 9,356 fans to a home stadium with a capacity of 46,500.

• On Oct. 3, 2004, the team played its final game as the Montreal Expos, losing to the New York Mets 8-1 at Shea Stadium in New York. The team began the 2005 season as the Washington Nationals.
Also on August 12:
• 1976: The name of Canada's second professional baseball team is announced. The “Toronto Blue Jays” is selected out of a list of 4,000 names suggested by the public.

• 1985: Petro-Canada becomes Canada's biggest service-station owner by buying 1,800 stations from Gulf Canada. The stations are located in Ontario, Western Canada and the Northwest Territories.

Baseball strike halts best-ever Expos team

Medium: Television

Program: Midday

Broadcast Date: Aug. 12, 1994

Guest(s): Dino Sisto

Host: Brent Bambury, Lynn Whitham

Duration: 6:51

Last updated:
Feb. 13, 2009