Review Fix chats with author Robert C. Cottrell, who discusses his book, “The Year Without a World Series: Major League Baseball and the Road to the 1994 Players’ Strike.
About the Author:
A writer with eclectic interests, Robert C. “Bob” Cottrell has penned numerous books on topics ranging from American radicalism, the 1960s, and the counterculture to baseball, WWII-era conscientious objectors, and popular culture. Among his best-known works are well-received biographies of the dissident journalist I.F. Stone, ACLU founder Roger Nash Baldwin, Negro National League pioneer Rube Foster, and, in dual biographical fashion, Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson, along with a riveting examination of 1968. His latest books, again displaying his wide-ranging explorations, focus on the early 20th century Lyrical Left, Sixties’ activists, what led up to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series, and Revolution, Counterrevolution, and Assassination. Bob’s newest project involves a dissection of the ascent and descent of the New York baseball dynasty, with a close look at the New York Giants, the Brooklyn Dodgers, and the New York Yankees. That also involves an emphasis on those teams’ star center fielders–Willie Mays, Duke Snider, and Mickey Mantle—and the shift of the Giants and the Dodgers to the West Coast. Woven throughout the book is an analysis of America race relations within and beyond the national pastime.
About the Book:
The 1994 Major League Baseball season promised to be memorable. Long-standing batting and pitching standards were threatened, including the revered single-season home run record. The Montreal Expos and New York Yankees were delivering remarkable campaigns. In August, acting commissioner Bud Selig called a halt to the season amid the League’s latest labor dispute. The shutdown led to a lockout as well as cancellation of more than 900 regular season games, the scheduled expanded rounds of playoffs, and that year’s World Series. Like all labor struggles, it was fundamentally about control–of salaries, of players’ ability to decide their own fates, and of the game itself.
This book chronicles Major League Baseball’s turbulent ’94 season and its ripple effects. It highlights earlier labor struggles and the roles performed by individuals from John Montgomery Ward, David Fultz and Robert Murphy to Marvin Miller, Andy Messersmith, Jim “Catfish” Hunter and Donald Fehr. Also examined are the ballplayers’ own organizations, from the Players League of the early 1890s to the still potent Major League Baseball Players Association doing battle with team owners and their representatives.
Review Fix: What inspired this book?
Robert C. Cottrell: I hadn’t written a baseball book since Two Pioneers: How Hank Greenberg and Jackie Robinson Transformed Baseball—and America so I wanted to do another one. In addition, my last works had all been kind of “heavy”: All-American Rebels: The American Left from the Wobblies to Today, The Activist 1960s: Striving for Political and Social Empowerment in America, and Martyrs of the Early American Left: Inez Milholland, Randolph Bourne, and John Reed, as was the reissued Izzy: A Biography of I.F. Stone. At the same time, my baseball books are not lacking substance, with a general focus on race, class, and American mythology, to a considerable extent. I turned to the 1994 season and what I considered to be the unimaginable cancellation of the playoffs and the World Series, which I largely blamed Selig and the owners for, but the players were not altogether innocent, either. In doing so, I felt the need to delve back into the long history of player-management relations.
Review Fix: What was the research process like?
Cottrell: It’s always kind of amorphous, as I draw on my experiences, research and writing-wise, among others. I latched onto the idea, then began drafting a rough outline that I believe I largely adhered to and started crafting a preface or introduction in addition to pulling together research materials, books, articles, essays, and so forth. In the era of COVID-19, the Internet proved invaluable, allowing for easy access to newspaper offerings and more.
I came to believe it was necessary to produce a considerable amount of prefatory information leading up to the 1994 strike, to determine which figures to feature, and to start writing. I set a goal for writing on a daily basis as I’m undertaking the initial draft.
Review Fix: Aside from fans, who was hurt most by the 94 strike?
Cottrell: Players, including those compiling numbers in the most statistically oriented of all sports. Would Bonds have come closer to 800 homers? He certainly would have passed the 2,000-RBI mark and collected 3,000 hits.
Review Fix: Aside from fans, who was hurt most by the 94 strike?
Cottrell: Players, including those compiling numbers in the most statistically oriented of all sports. Would Bonds have come closer to 800 homers? He certainly would have passed the 2,000-RBI mark and collected 3,000 hits.
Review Fix: What are the biggest what-ifs for this season?
Cottrell: So many of them come to mind, but here’s a few. The targeting of 60-61 homers by Williams, Griffey, Thomas, Bonds, and Belle, with Bagwell’s injury having taken him out of the chase. Or Hack Wilson’s longstanding NL mark of 56 by National Leaguers. How low Maddux’s ERA might have gone. Would the Yankees have finally finished back in the playoffs and won their first World Series since 1978. Or would the Expos have done that and would that have made the Montreal franchise more viable. How lifetime records would have been impacted. On and on.
Review Fix: Anything you learned you weren’t expecting?
Cottrell: Probably how unconcerned the owners appeared to be, as exemplified by their willingness to accomplish what two world wars and the Great Depression had been unable to: kill the Fall Classic and threaten the upcoming season, too. Their lack of a sense of history, tradition, and continuity in such a history-laden sport that relies in a constant ebb-and-flow.
Review Fix: Who do you think will enjoy this book the most?
Cottrell: The style in which it is delivered and the subject matter should be appealing to general readers, but of course, especially to sports fans, particularly those enamored with the National Game.
Review Fix: What’s next for you?
Cottrell: I recently finished a two-volume study of Revolutions, Counterrevolutions, and Assassinations, so I wanted to get back to something a little gentler and “lighter.” I’ve started on a too big, general history of baseball with the same emphasis on class, race, and mythology, but I’ve set that aside to tackle another, more manageable project. This one is on baseball revolutionaries—John Montgomery Ward, Rube Foster, Babe Ruth, Jackie Robinson, and Marvin Miller—all of whom altered the game in some dramatic fashion.
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