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Wednesday, January 19, 2022

How baseball changed forever in 1972: A timeline of MLB’s most memorable events, 50 years later

April 1
After player reps vote 47-0 with one abstention (Wes Parker of the Dodgers) in favor, the Major League Baseball Players Association goes on strike. Thus begins the first work stoppage in MLB history. Under the leadership of pioneering union leader Marvin Miller, the players strike over the issue of pension payments. The players want a 17 percent increase to reflect inflation over the prior three years and for owners to honor their commitment to cover medical costs. Owners refuse on both counts. Miller announces that players are willing to end the strike with a new pension accord or an agreement to take the dispute to arbitration. Since the union is still a relatively nascent entity—Miller became the first head of the Major League Baseball Players Association in July 1966, and it wasn’t until 1968 that the MLBPA negotiated its first collective bargaining agreement with the league—owners underestimate the players’ power and solidarity. As John Gaherin, the owners’ lead negotiator, would later say, “The perception on our side was that the union was still weak. This was the time to take it on.”...

April 11
Following federal mediation at the behest of President Nixon, the two sides agree on a new pension format. However, players and owners remain at odds over whether the canceled games will be made up for a full 162-game schedule and whether players will receive back pay for canceled games.

April 13
The MLBPA and owners agree that games lost to the strike will not be made up and no back pay will be received. With that final hurdle cleared, the strike ends. In all, 86 regular-season games are lost to the work stoppage.

RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: January 19, 2022 at 09:49 PM | 20 comment(s) Login to Bookmark
  Tags: labor issues

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   1. John Northey Posted: January 19, 2022 at 10:17 PM (#6061652)
Thus we get the closest race without a playoff - 1/2 a game between the Tigers and Red Sox in the AL East, Tigers lose to the A's (first of 3 straight WS wins for the A's).
   2. the Hugh Jorgan returns Posted: January 19, 2022 at 11:30 PM (#6061661)
Wes Parker of the Dodgers)


I'm sorry, but that's Wes Parker of Brady Bunch fame to you buddy!
   3. SoSH U at work Posted: January 19, 2022 at 11:38 PM (#6061663)
Thus we get the closest race without a playoff - 1/2 a game between the Tigers and Red Sox in the AL East,


The Reds finished a half-game out in the first half of 1981 and the Cards did the same in the second half. And both of them finished the full season with better marks than the Dodgers/Astros/Expos/Phils.
   4. Howie Menckel Posted: January 19, 2022 at 11:53 PM (#6061664)
Josh Gibson was elected to the HOF that year as its first Negro Leagues hitter (Satchel Paige got in a year earlier).

Ted Williams induction, 1966:

"I hope that one day Satchel Paige and Josh Gibson will be voted into the Hall of Fame as symbols of the great Negro players who are not here only because they weren’t given the chance."

in the 1990s: "No one encouraged me. I thought this thing alone,” Williams said. “I’ve seen Satchel Paige. I’ve seen Josh Gibson. I heard about Buck Leonard. I heard about some of the other great black athletes. It just came out that [Hall of Fame] day … [and I thought about] the great players of the past. … Only because of their color, [they] didn’t have a chance to play in the big leagues.”
   5. Rally Posted: January 20, 2022 at 09:06 AM (#6061676)
The Reds finished a half-game out in the first half of 1981 and the Cards did the same in the second half. And both of them finished the full season with better marks than the Dodgers/Astros/Expos/Phils.


Not only that, the Reds had the best record in baseball. But still were left out of an 8 team playoff field, the biggest ever at the time.
   6. SoSH U at work Posted: January 20, 2022 at 09:44 AM (#6061681)
Not only that, the Reds had the best record in baseball. But still were left out of an 8 team playoff field, the biggest ever at the time.


I think their exclusion from the AL playoffs was justified.
   7. RoyalsRetro (AG#1F) Posted: January 20, 2022 at 09:59 AM (#6061684)

Thus we get the closest race without a playoff - 1/2 a game between the Tigers and Red Sox in the AL East,


Could they not have squeezed that game in?

I had no idea about the Tigers dome - why did that get derailed?
   8. SoSH U at work Posted: January 20, 2022 at 10:05 AM (#6061686)
Could they not have squeezed that game in?


As mentioned in the excerpt, they agreed in April that no games would be made up. The Sox were just out of luck.
   9. Starring Bradley Scotchman as RMc Posted: January 20, 2022 at 10:16 AM (#6061688)
Thus we get the closest race without a playoff - 1/2 a game between the Tigers and Red Sox in the AL East,

Could they not have squeezed that game in?


The season ended with a three-game Red Sox-Tigers series in Detroit, making it a de facto playoff series. (Detroit came in with a half-game lead, won the first two games and clinched the division.)

I had no idea about the Tigers dome - why did that get derailed?

IIRC (too lazy to look it up), they were going to build new stadia for both the Tigers and Lions, with a huge sliding roof in between them. (They did something similar in KC, with Royals Stadium and Arrowhead, only without the sliding roof.)
   10. SoSH U at work Posted: January 20, 2022 at 10:30 AM (#6061690)
Detroit came in with a half-game lead, won the first two games and clinched the division.


Close. Detroit came in trailing by a half-game, then won the first two and clinched the division.
   11. Howie Menckel Posted: January 20, 2022 at 10:52 AM (#6061693)
wow, one of my all-time favorite quotes turns 50 this year!

a sanguine Red Sox manager Eddie Kasko was asked about how things could have been different if....

Eddie calmly replied, "If 'ifs and buts' were candy and nuts, we'd all have a Merry Christmas."
   12. Starring Bradley Scotchman as RMc Posted: January 20, 2022 at 11:53 AM (#6061705)
Re 10: You're right, I misremembered. (Detroit was actually 1 1/2 back with 4 to play!)
   13. . Posted: January 20, 2022 at 12:57 PM (#6061714)
The impressionable brain years, in full:

Red Sox played the Orioles the penultimate weekend and WJR, the Tigers' flagship radio station, broadcast at least two of the games.

Al Kaline made the final out of the clincher. Fans stormed the field.

In the final game, after the Tigers clinched, Joe Coleman had a chance to win his 20th -- which mattered then -- but the Sox beat him.

The Tigers whiffed away Game 1; our family drove that day to West Virginia where my dad's brother lived and he laughed when the whiff was complete.

Game 4 was one of the most awesome postseason comebacks ever. Loved those 9 and 10 year old get back from school and playoff baseball is on NBC TV situations. Same thing the next year for the Pete Rose/Bud Harrelson fight at second base.

Game 5 was a gut-wrencher; cold, dreary mid-October afternoon, hard to get a hit plus the era was low offense. Vida Blue Bumgarner'd a 4-inning save. Reggie tore his hamstring on a double steal. Stadiums being what they were then, people threw a bunch of #### on the field in the late innings and some might have even run onto the field. The radio broadcast is on YouTube; the games are so well-paced that Ernie Harwell barely has time to say anything between pitches.
   14. Tony S Posted: January 20, 2022 at 02:15 PM (#6061742)

Great, absorbing piece. The 1972 postseason is the earliest one I consciously remember watching parts of.

I shook Roberto Clemente's hand in late December, 1972. My neighborhood in suburban San Juan did a little local relief drive for the Nicaraguan earthquake victims, and my mother drove us to the collection center at Plaza Las Americas mall to drop off the supplies. Roberto was there, and me and some of the other neighborhood kids all eagerly lined up to meet him and get his autograph, which he graciously gave to all of us. Each of them personalized, no less. So eight-year-old me had a yellow piece of paper with a special note and autograph from Roberto Clemente.

A few days later, on New Years Day, I got the call from one of my buddies... :(
   15. Walt Davis Posted: January 20, 2022 at 03:54 PM (#6061772)
I hadn't thought about this season (starting with a lockout) being the 50th anniversary of the 1972 season. Because of the delayed start, Cubs' opening day was on Saturday and it's the only opening day I've ever been to. I just woke up that morning, got my allowance from my mom and off I went all by myself. I thought I was in line for the grandstand but it was the bleachers. Bit of an eye-opener for 10-yo Walt but they took good care of me. First time I ever swore out loud ("Go to Hell Left Field! Go to Hell!") Willie Montanez of the Phils before the game repeatedly tried to give a fan a ball ... and whoever caught it was immediately pressured to toss it back. Thank god it never came my way.

I went back with friends the next day too and Burt Hooton tossed a no-hitter, the only one of those I've seen in person.

Great way to start the season. The Cubs did finish with a winning record and in 2nd that year (a mere 11 games back of the Pirates). Seems unlikely I'll make it to Wrigley for opening day this year.
   16. salvomania Posted: January 20, 2022 at 05:02 PM (#6061775)
This is the first time I've read about all the shortcomings of the ill-fated plane and the plane's owner involved in the tragic Clemente crash.

Hard to say what was sketchier---the plane, or the owner, both of which were festooned with red flags.
   17. Tom Nawrocki Posted: January 20, 2022 at 05:21 PM (#6061776)
I went back with friends the next day too and Burt Hooton tossed a no-hitter, the only one of those I've seen in person.


I don't remember watching that game, but I remember my mom telling me that Hooton came across as a big jerk on the Tenth Inning show (or maybe it was on the Lead-Off Man the following day). She never did like Hooton after that.
   18. AndrewJ Posted: January 20, 2022 at 07:46 PM (#6061790)
Dec. 23
A series of earthquakes devastate the Nicaraguan capital city of Managua.


Most Pittsburghers, besides Roberto Clemente, pay no attention as this is the same day as the Immaculate Reception...
   19. reech Posted: January 20, 2022 at 07:57 PM (#6061791)
Wasn't that the year that in the playoffs Campanaris threw his bat at a Tigers pitcher?
I was a young kid and thought that and Billy Martin going crazy were the coolest things ever.
   20. Howie Menckel Posted: January 20, 2022 at 08:39 PM (#6061797)
ah, Lerrin LaGrow

Martin ordered LaGrow to throw low and hit Campy for having a good game, which in his eyes was fine sportsmanship. hence his outrage at the bat toss (which LaGrow managed to duck).

post 13 unites that brawl with the Rose-Harrelson one a year later. different times.

had a chance to talk to Pete last year, and told him I liked his "Charlie Hustle" book so much as a youngster that I hated him less than the other Mets fans I knew - even after that fight.

"you guys should have been happy," he said. "you won and went to the World Series."

don't ever change, Pete!

er, wait....

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