What Was The Biggest Story Of The 2002 Baseball Season?

[Max Power]

Please explain your choice in the above poll in this thread - thanks.

[BravesWin!]

Most definately saving our sport by whoever did it, whether it was Bud, Don Fehr, Gene Orza, Paul Beeston, who someone we don't even know.......for me, the 2002 season will always be the one that saved baseball.

andrew

[nyy26wc]

For its impact on the long term interests of the game, the CBA's an easy choice.

[Fatwater Fewl]

Yep, no work stoppage. Baseball continued and continues.

[Domeboys]

I agree the CBA was huge. It's just that I was touched by the deaths, especially of an active player. And the John Henry Williams cryo-circus may come back again soon if the cloning story isn't a hoax.

Still, all said, I am very, very glad the season continued...I just wish the idiots running the game really cared about it...

[Skip]

CBA is easily the biggest story ... though ... is it the beginning of a path toward empowering the owners or a blip in the long string of labor victories and a portent of a much more violent clash next time??

[minibac]

I was leaning towards the deaths of "The Kid" (my husband's hero) and Buck, but the thought of no baseball.............couldn't decide. Asked hubby, without giving him choices, what the biggest story was. He suggested the deaths were the "saddest" but avoiding a strike was the BIGGEST.

Funny....the biggest story, no strike, ends up costing us about $1000. I now have to write checks for our Spring Training season tickets and a parking pass. Had there been a strike, hubby vowed we were finished attending MLB games of any kind. 2003 would have been the first spring in fifteen years that was not committed to baseball.

Barbara <---counting down......47 days til Oriole workouts open to the public at Fort Lauderdale Stadium

[BigJon]

The new CBA was not only the most important baseball story of the year 2002, it very well may be the biggest baseball story of the next five years.

If salaries continue to shrink back to controllable levels, and length's of contracts fall back into the 2-3 range for most players, than the owners will have indeed done something to equalize payrolls. This won't necessarily mean competitive balance has been achieved. I believe teams like the Yankees and Red Sox and Dodgers will always have more money to spend. But if 20-25 teams are in the 75-95 million dollar range and no teams are spending less than 50 million and no teams are over the 120 million dollar point, Baseball will be the National Sport once again.

The Steroid story received far more attention than the CBA but pales in comparison as far as importance. Performance enhancing supplements are here to stay. The wise course for Baseball would be to allow them all and educate about the dangers of actual steroids and test every player in spring training for the more dangerous abuses.

In an ideal world the Top Story of 2002 would have been Barry Bonds or the Angels.

[CubFan7125]

Nationally it may not have been the biggest story, but living in St. Paul nothing commanded news more than the contraction scare. Next I would have to say the whole sad Ted Williams death, deep freeze saga. It crossed over from purely a baseball story to general news & stayed in the news for while.

[Ytown Tribe fan]

Four stories combined into what I thought was the biggest baseball story of the last 5 years: the CBA, the contraction scare, the Twins making the playoffs, and the Expos.

I voted for the contraction scare, since IMO it's the symbol of everything that's wrong with the baseball leadership and ownership, and the Twins making the playoffs as everything that's RIGHT with the game itself, despite the owners and the leadership.

[Jim Rice]

The CBA, hands down. True, there is still some work facing both sides, but it is the single event that could realistically alter the future of the sport.

[sweaver]

I vote for the Angels in their first crown, because I will always take an on-field story over the off-field nonsense.

The negotiations and subsequent agreement were certainly the things that most consumed us this season. Include contraction in with that, as it was all really one big, long, overblown, annoying story. Sort of like the Michael Jackson saga.

And welcome to minibac. Way to make that first post!

[LeGrandOrange]

Were it not for Steinbrenner, I would vote for the CBA as well. Steinbrenner sort of turns it into a farce, he's going to overspend regardless.

It was a tough choice between the passing of greats and the contraction that wasn't, being an Expos fan the latter weighed very heavily on me. But the passing of greats just loomed larger IMO, given how largely Williams looms over the minds of a whole generation of baseball fans, and you add some of the non-HOF'ers that were very good to that group and it was a sadly big year in that department. And unlike the contraction the stuff actually happened.

Thus it gets my vote, and hopefully this won't be an option in 2003.

[lonelybrewerfan]

I see the logic in saying that the CBA is the story but I have to disagree because I think we have all lost sight of the game on the field.

I am a Giants fan as well as my lonely brewer fan status and as much as it killed me to see Barry lose, you had to love the Angels. A bunch of no-nonsense, hardworking ball-players that really defined what a team is. No super stars, just good fundamental baseball.

So in lieu of the popular choice, i vote for the angles.... with props to Barrys 600th.

[jzmet]

The best baseball story of the year--the team effort of the Angels or Twins, the coaching job of Frank Robinson, the collapse of the Mets, Derek Lowe, John Smoltz, take your pick. I emphatically will not choose the CBA or contraction or anything off the field--aren't you guys sick of reading nearly any article on baseball or a player and, inevitably, dollars are mentioned? That's not baseball, guys. Baseball is about people and pitches and swings and grass and Opening Day, not insurance and contraction and signability, etc. Try coaching Little League or go see a high school game, that's baseball. Hot Stove League, that's baseball. I'm not naive; I probably understand the market dynamics of baseball better than most--all the more reason to focus on the game. If the powers that be were stupid enough to let the season end prematurely last year, I would have done the same thing this year that I always do--go to very few ML games, coach a little, go to minors or high school games, and play fantasy ball. The economics of the sport aren't fun, but the game is and always will be. I feel like I just paraphrased a scene from "Field of Dreams". Thanks for letting me rant, guys.

[Max Power]

I voted for the CBA - but, I also wonder - - - given that it was a must that a CBA was reached (or else risk the doom of baseball) was the fact that one was reached the biggest story?

It's kinda like saying that Sunday following Saturday is a big story. But, really, Sunday has to follow Saturday - or else it's the end of the world...........maybe I'm making the CBA happening sound too easy? Am I?

[jheer]

Although I am biased by my involvement, the biggest story to me was Ted Williams' being frozen against his Will by his son.

[sweaver]

This may be a case of being too close to the story, John. ;)

Of course, FOR YOU, the Tedsicle case was certainly the biggest story.

[MDC]

Biggest story is undoubtedly the lack of a strike when it looked so likely.

But the Angels WS win was important in two ways: it was a marvellous team performance and it showed the mass ranks of Netshrine tipsters to be too tipsy to tip effectively! :p

[TimmyB]

I wish I could pick something besides the CBA process, but it hung over the season like smog.

[pwdennis]

The deaths of too many legends, followed by the avoidance of a strike.

[b-ball-lunachik]

Before I saw the choices, the passing of Kile and others and the way the Cards had to deal with that was the first thing that came to mind...then I saw the CBA and of course changed my mind...

Angels winning it all --the year of the underdog,the anti-home field advantage and wild card vs wild card would be third for me...

[satchel]

I'll chime in with the majority, and cast a vote for the CBA. Max, I don't think it's like Sunday following Saturday, because the CBA didn't have to happen the way you phrased it in the poll - without a work stoppage. We were all braced and prepared for baseball to end that night. Some of us were ready to walk away from the game for good. The fact that we're all still here talking baseball is indeed a big story. Much of the rest of the stuff on the list - for example, my second and third choices, the Angels winning the series and the A's streak - depend upon that CBA happening without a work stoppage.

[Max Power]

good points satchel

[WiredTiger]

The CBA was huge. It cast a shadow over the beginning of the season and it came right down to the wire on whether it would be signed.

[TimmyB]

We may actually look back at 2002 as a watershed season in the same way we look at the Curt Flood in 1970 and the Hunter, Messersmith/McNally winters of '75 and '76 -- except in the opposite direction. The free-agent class of '03 will tell us a lot about 2002. (Of course, it will be small solace to the fans of Pittsburgh, KC, Milwaukee, etc., if their teams continue to strive for poverty.) (But that won't happen... right? :rolleyes: )

[gyb13]

had there been a work stoppage, we wouldn't have been talking about anything else baseball-related.

[spitball]

Angels winning the world series is an easy choice for me.
The labor/money stuff was just plain boring and stupid.
The Angels and Twins showed the baseball world that money doesn't guarantee a championship. Heart and grit go a long way.
Go Angels in 2003!!

[rcartman28]

I voted for the CBA, too. If that doesn't happen nothing else would have mattered......

on the field, I would have voted for the Angels finally winning one, closely followed by the great run by the "Contracted" Twins.

[hmrsf]

'02 is one of the greatest baseball season of all times. Baseball came back to life when man did it's best to kill it.

The combination of all these events both good and bad will ensure that the game will move forward.

I feel that the balance of power is shifting more to center. No more players vs owners in a greedy grab. The only solution was no strike and both sides herd the fans.

The death of baseball greats was devastating but some exciting players are taking stage.

Smaller market teams are making bigger market teams take notice.

Baseball will be different in this new century.:p I am so excited. I feel like a kid all over again!!!

[SmedIndy]

Gotta vote for the CBA - otherwise we'd be in nuclear winter right now.

[Doc Pontoon]

The free-agent class of '03 will tell us a lot about 2002. (Of course, it will be small solace to the fans of Pittsburgh, KC, Milwaukee, etc., if their teams continue to strive for poverty.)"Striving for poverty" is about as apt a description for those teams' organizational philosophies as I've seen.

Anyhow, I agree with the majority here (I don't use that phrase very much!) The CBA was it. I would say that it wasn't a seperate story from the contraction hoax. Also related was the fact that the owners successfully kept saying the same lie - that most teams lose money - so much that most everyone believed it. Baseball made 3 billion in revenues, player salaries were 1.5 billion, therefore the owners are losing money. Also, war is peace, and we have always been at war with Oceania.

[Golden Bear]

It's about the game.

[LisaG]

i have to go with the majority- no cba, no baseball, no chat. i hate that it occupied and detracted from most of the season. but for this one owners win, fans lose.

i think angels win ( barry doesn't in spite of his incredible year and series) is the real story of the season- it's the game, unfortunately grossly overshadowed by greed.

next has to be goodbye to jack buck and Ted.

next has to be the steroid problem

and somewhere included in this poll has to be the sad sight of bud sucking up to pete rose