Sixteen years ago today, greed dealt a fatal blow to one of baseball's emerging franchises.
The Montreal Expos never fully recovered from the labor stoppage of 1994, which removed a great young team from baseball's landscape that could've challenged the Yankees and Braves.
Felipe Alou's exciting club led the majors with a 74-40 record behind young stars such as Larry Walker (pictured at right), Pedro Martinez, Marquis Grissom, Moises Alou, Jeff Fassero and Cliff Floyd. In the farm system were Vladimir Guerrero, Jose Vidro, Javier Vazquez and Orlando Cabrera. Absent the labor stoppage, the Expos would've been a joy to watch in late 1994 and beyond. Their story is worth remembering in years ahead, when Big Media will release glowing retrospectives of the Selig Era.
o. West Coast Bias misses watching Barry Bonds, even sans bat.
Set aside what Bonds did with the cream or the clear, the man was diamond-sharp on the basepaths. His first step was ultra-quick, his anticipation skills and reads superb. Bonds had a noodle arm but played the best left field I saw in 15 years as a beat writer. Many good outfielders are afraid to play shallow. Not so Bonds, who took away singles that others would not and went back on balls like a center fielder would.
o. It's amazing that the pinstriped hackers who introduced a virus into The Matrix still haven't killed the machine.
The Red Sox aren't dead, far from it, despite a brutal series of injuries that causes one informed Sox fan in California to marvel at their staying power.
"I don't think any other team -- maybe the Yankees -- could have stayed in the race this long with that many star-player injuries," said Padres general manager Jed Hoyer, a former aide to Sox GM Theo Epstein. "Who knows, next year they could go injury-free. It's random bad luck."
Hoyer and a fellow exec recently mused that if "replacement-level" players were allied with all the Sox players who've gone onto the DL, that team might lead any another division. Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Commentssoccer equipment
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