Word: strikingly
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Like the European powers in the fateful August days of 1914 leading up to World War I, both owners and players became locked in unyielding stances that made protracted trench warfare inevitable. The few bargaining sessions that were held before the strike quickly degenerated into formulaic speeches and sarcastic byplay, all accentuated by the growing animosity between the voluble, chain-smoking Ravitch and the intense, almost humorless Fehr. "Did you see how unpleasant he is?" Ravitch asked rhetorically about Fehr before a joint TV appearance Friday. "It's never been like that in all the negotiations I've been involved...
...date that should live in infamy as long as baseball is played -- was chosen as the strike date by a player vote to give the union maximum leverage. As employees, the players had already received more than two-thirds of their 1994 salaries. But the owners earn almost all their national-TV revenues during the September pennant races and the October postseason. (The broadcast rights to the play-offs and the World Series alone were projected to bring in $180 million.) The owners had just launched their experimental Baseball Network on ABC and NBC with the mid-July All-Star...
...they certainly don't, as every rabid Rotisserie rooter, desperately craving his breakfast box-score fix, can attest. What makes the present condition of baseballus interruptus so galling is that the major leagues as a whole (unlike several individual teams) are prospering. Before the strike, attendance was running a little ahead of the record 70 million who went to games in 1993. Following the opening of Baltimore's fabled Camden Yards in 1992, new baseball-only parks -- combining classic ballyard architecture with modern amenities -- have brought sellout crowds to the Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers...
...hours leading up to the player strike, several owners of wealthy teams pointedly dissented from Ravitch's salary-cap proposal. "It's all dollars, knowing what it's going to cost to play ball," said Jerry McMorris, who owns the Colorado Rockies, a hugely popular expansion team. "I don't think that a salary cap is necessary." Other mavericks included the ever surprising George Steinbrenner and Peter Angelos, new owner of the Orioles. But an insider close to the owners cautioned, "Nothing heavy is going on. I don't think people will follow Steinbrenner or Angelos either." Still, Angelos deserves...
...they are, they tend to split according to their economic interests." Clearly, some owners (Steinbrenner, Angelos) want to settle fast. The problem is that the owners, at Selig's behest, enacted a stop-me-before-I-buckle-again clause that requires 21 votes for an agreement after a player strike begins. Some theorize that Selig might lead a kamikaze band of less profitable owners to block an agreement well into next season. But the owners seem to make and break their own rules almost at will, and it's possible they could finesse themselves around the 21-vote requirement...