More than 30 years after Major League Baseball players went on strike and the league canceled the 1994 World Series, one of the major figures of that time is worried that history is repeating itself.
Hall of Famer Tom Glavine, who was exposed to scorn and contempt from fans as a forward-facing MLB Players Association executive subcommittee member during the 232-day strike, told ESPN that he is "100%" concerned that the players and league are barreling toward a work stoppage that could put the season in jeopardy similar to 1994-95.
That was the last time MLB officially proposed a salary cap system, which would be the most fundamental overhaul to the economic structure that has governed the game since the initial collective bargaining agreement in 1968. The league, which argued then that the game's revenue disparity was unsustainable long term, is again citing competitive balance as the impetus for its cap push. The current collective bargaining agreement expires Dec. 1.
Glavine, who over a 22-year career with the Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets won 305 games, acknowledged the significant growth in the payroll gap between top and bottom teams but believes a cap is not necessary to solve it.
"I get the concerns over the disparity," Glavine said, "but I don't know that those concerns are any different, really, when you get down to the basics of what they were in '94, because I feel like we argued about the same things."
Glavine's anxiety about the potential for another calamitous fight echoes that of commissioner Rob Manfred, who was asked June 3 if he worries about a repeat of the labor discord that wiped out the 1994 postseason. "Of course I do," he told reporters. A lawyer for the league in 1994-95, Manfred is one the few central figures from that era still involved in this round of negotiations and knows firsthand what a lengthy work stoppage could mean for attendance and revenues at a time when the sport is cresting.
Owners this time have cultivated broad support for a cap, even with the vehement opposition of players. The league's initial proposal included a $245.3 million ceiling and $171.2 million floor, and it is expected to present further details in a meeting with the union this week. Despite public polling supporting a cap, players continue to espouse arguments similar to those Glavine and fellow star pitcher David Cone made when they served as union spokespeople.
"The salary cap has always been viewed as a means to control the owners because they can't control themselves," Glavine said. "That's how players have always viewed a salary cap. Our feeling has always been, 'Listen, nobody's telling you what you have to pay us, nobody's demanding what you have to pay us. You pay us what you want to pay us, you know? And if you don't want to pay us, then we'll go to another team and find another team that's maybe willing to pay us.'
"From a player standpoint," he added, "the more restrictions there are on what teams are allowed to pay, the more restriction there is on the freedom of a player. The thing that is of the utmost importance to every player is having that freedom."
When owners in 1994 signaled they planned to hold firm to their cap demands, it was a tipping point in the negotiations. Glavine recalled the feeling among players: "You want to talk about a really easy thing for the union, the players to unite around? ... Going into that year, we as player reps and people on the negotiating committee understand what's coming and what I guess the doomsday scenario is. We understand it. We know what it is. Now, you don't necessarily know that you're going to get there, right? But we know what it is."
Playing without a collective bargaining agreement -- it expired Dec. 31, 1993, and both sides initially opted against shutting down the game -- the players set a strike date for Aug. 12, 1994, figuring it was their best opportunity to exert leverage on the owners. MLB did not budge, and the owners voted to cancel the postseason on Sept. 14.
"I don't think I ever thought that the playoffs and the World Series were going to get canceled," Glavine said.
Once they were, the legal maneuvering that eventually brought back baseball started to unfold. President Bill Clinton appointed former Secretary of Labor William Usery to mediate an agreement. With limited substantive progress, MLB declared an impasse three days before Christmas and said it planned to implement a cap.
The move backfired when the MLBPA filed an unfair labor practices charge with the National Labor Relations Board, which sought an injunction against the league. District Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor -- now a Supreme Court justice -- granted the injunction, killing MLB's hope for a cap. With the gambit dead, the players ended the strike, and MLB played a shortened 144-game season in 1995.
The players staved off the cap, but baseball's reputation suffered -- and the players were the easiest targets. In Glavine's first spring training game in 1995, he hit a ground ball and was greeted by a fan who told him, "You ran faster to union meetings than you run in to first base." In Glavine's first home game that season, he was warming up down the right-field line when a fan started razzing him and said: "You know what? I'm going to help you out. I'm going to pass the hat." The man, Glavine said, took off his cap and used it as a makeshift collection plate before taking the cash and change and throwing it at Glavine.
"Internally I kind of had to laugh. I was like, 'That's pretty good,'" Glavine said. "And then I had to kind of compose myself and get ready to go out there and pitch."
Eventually the anger abated, aided by Cal Ripken Jr. breaking Lou Gehrig's consecutive-games-played streak later that season and particularly by Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa's home run record chase of 1998. But in the summer of 2002, with the cap no longer in play but the animus from the previous negotiations still fresh, Glavine dreaded a repeat of 1994-95.
"I remember vividly myself at some point in time," Glavine said, "just saying to everybody, 'Guys, we can't do this.'"
The sides struck an 11th-hour deal that continued what would become more than a quarter-century of labor peace for baseball after decades of fighting. Over the course of that time, MLB's desire for a cap never subsided, and now in this round of negotiations -- following the 99-day lockout in 2021-22 that threatened games lost for the first time since the 1994-95 strike -- owners have united to cross the red line that players have held since the union's inception.
Perhaps the most difficult part of standing up for that belief, Glavine said, will be ensuring solidarity among players. In February 1995, after Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra told ESPN's Chris Myers that players were "at the ceiling" financially -- the highest-paid player today, New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto at $61.9 million this year, makes nearly 10 times what the highest-paid player did in 1993 (Bobby Bonilla at $6.3 million) -- the union redoubled its efforts to keep players in line, reminding them of their greatest virtue.
"You have to obviously be patient," Glavine said. "And I just remember being told that all the time: Guys, a deal is going to get done when they're ready to make a deal. The hardest thing as a player is the more you push, you're essentially just negotiating against yourself, and you're worsening your own position."
In other words, Glavine said, take the recent opening salvos from MLB and the MLBPA -- whose initial proposal called for a tax on low-spending teams, more revenue sharing and significant pay increases for younger players -- with a grain of salt. These are the early stages of what figures to be a protracted battle.
Should it echo past events, Dec. 1 will pass without a deal, leaving the players locked out and the 2027 season in peril at a time when attendance and TV ratings are ascendant and the game, in Glavine's eyes, is likewise.
"The pitch clock has been fantastic," he said. "Some of the other rules, implementations, I think subtly have made the game better. So, I think all of those things are better. Revenues are through the roof, right? It's like, well, why? What are we doing? I really would love to get inside the head of an owner and have somebody really be honest about it and not tell me it's about competitive balance as to, like, what is it?"
Owners privately point to franchise values that have lagged behind other sports, but evening a playing field in which the Los Angeles Dodgers are set to pay well over $500 million in payroll and luxury tax combined while the Cleveland Guardians sport a payroll around $70 million is far more resonant with fans.
Of course, it's never that simple, Glavine said. The Guardians are in first place. So are the low-payroll Milwaukee Brewers. Of the dozen teams that would have to increase payroll to reach the floor in MLB's first proposal, half would make the playoffs if the season ended today. And that, Glavine said, is where nuance and institutional knowledge are vital -- particularly on a complex subject like collective bargaining. And as Glavine learned the hard way two decades ago, well-established biases often carry the day, regardless of an argument's strength.
"The biggest mistake I made as a player rep going through it was if anybody asked me to do an interview, I did it. And I did it because I thought if you gave me five minutes and you're not on our side, I can change your mind," Glavine said. "And I don't think I realized how entrenched people's opinions were either for us or against us, and there was just not a lot of minds being changed.
"If you don't know history, you're doomed to repeat it," he added. "It would probably do both sides some good to understand, or at least go back, and look at the effects of what happened last time when there was a strike and a prolonged stoppage."
