March 7, 2021: A Summer without Baseball

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Coming off a year in 2020 where we almost had a summer without baseball, we know first hand how that feels; it’s unnatural. Baseball and summer go hand in hand. Thankfully the season finally began in July. Back in 1981, there was another gap in the summer without baseball. Back then, it was due to a strike. Welcome to Baseball Seasons 1981.

Two full months in the middle of the season without baseball; unbelievable. After free agency started a handful of years earlier, the balance in baseball began to shift. The Yankees, among other teams, were able to offer big time deals to guys to come play in the Bronx; this time it would be Dave Winfield. Coming over from San Diego, he would play an integral part in the Yankees season. The beef was, what about the teams that lose their guys to the big bank teams? Shouldn’t they get compensation? That was the big argument by the players. The players and owners finally came to an agreement, and baseball was back.

What happens then though? The fans were very welcoming, coming back to the games like nothing happened. But what about the big gap in play? It’s almost like there were 2 separate seasons, and that’s exactly how the MLB treated it. The 4 first place teams in the first half of the season made the playoffs, while the 4 first place teams in the second half of the season made the playoffs. What happened if the same team finished in first place both halves? Well, it didn’t happen, but you did have teams that finished in 2nd place in both halves, the Reds and the Cardinals, who if you combined their records from each half, had better records than the teams who made the playoffs. Unfair? Maybe. It certainly was a unique structure to the season. It was like the first divisional series’, prompted by the mid-season strike. I’m kind of surprised that baseball didn’t stick with that extra round of playoff baseball. MLB wouldn’t permanently adopt another round until 1994.

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The Yankees Brewers, Athletics Royals, Astros Dodgers, and Expos Phillies all faced off. It was a nice treat after missing so much baseball in the middle of the season. With double the amount of teams in the postseason, that meant double the amount of fanbases cheering in the second season. While the Yankees, Dodgers and A’s all won, like they had many years before, the Expos won their first ever playoff series. What a great team that was: Andre Dawson, Gary Carter, Tim Raines. They’ve had a lot of great players over the years. It wouldn’t be enough to get past the Dodgers, as LA played the role of Philly in the previous year, coming back all series long. And yes, it would be the Yankees advancing from the AL, setting up the 11th matchup with the Dodgers in the World Series.

The 70s were a decade of coming up just short for the Dodgers, three times, once to the As and twice to the Yankees. They would start off the 80s beating the Yankees; it was their first World Series win with Tommy Lasorda at the helm. With the veteran infield of Garvey, Lopes, Russell, and Cey, and the young guys Valenzuela and Guerrero, they beat the Yankees in what would thankfully be their last World Series matchup to date. The Yankees hold that 8-3 advantage against the Dodgers, but the Dodgers were the last team to celebrate. The 1982 Series would feature two teams from the Midwest, unfortunately one of them being the team I hate the most in baseball.

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