Perhaps more than any other baseball season in history--save the scandal of 1919--the summer of 1981 will be remembered far beyond any statistic which could be squeezed between the first and final out of any ball game. As things turned out, the event of reference was really a non-event as the cry of "Play Ball" was hushed from every major league diamond in the land for a period of seven weeks and a day.

The silence and locked turnstiles were the results of a strike by the Major League Baseball Players Association and the inventory of the aftermath included the loss of 713 games and an estimated ninety-eight million dollars in player's salaries and ticket, broadcast, and concession revenues. More than money, however, was the interruption of the Great American Summer Ballet for the first time since major league baseball set up shop in the summer of 1876.

In a summer which frustrated the aging stars trying to rise a notch higher in the lifetime standings, and the younger players losing the needed time of a full schedule to hone their talents, there was a split season, an extra round of playoff games, and anger and bitterness from the players and fans alike. Although the strike, which began on June 12, was called by the players, the credit for the crisis was attributed to the owners, who sought to win back what they had previously lost at the bargaining table and in the courts on the issue of the free-agent draft. What the owners wanted was compensation for losing a player to the draft. The compensation-considered to be a crippling penalty by the players-was the loss of a man from the middle of the roster (the sixteenth man) to be assigned to the team from which the free agent came. To the players it was a totally unacceptable concept. After fighting for years to obtain free-agent status the players were not about to give up what amounted to an erosion of their victory.

The owners had thoughtfully taken out strike insurance with Lloyds of London and fittingly enough, called an end to the clamor as the insurance ran out. The players had won their point, but the damage was irrevocable. The season's schedule had been sheared by one-third and the owners' intervention to salvage the season brought as much confusion as the strike itself.

When it became evident that the strike would be lasting enough to make it impossible to complete the regulation season intact, a split season was served up. The pre-strike standings were treated as "total" and the teams who were leading their divisions were declared the "first-half" winners. The four teams would then compete in a best three-of-five playoff series against the team which won the second half. If the same team happened to win the second season then the opponent would be the team which finished second in the second half.

At best, it was a formula that gave baseball an unprecedented avalanche of asterisks. It also turned out to be one which left the Cincinnati Reds, holder of the season's best won and lost record, out of the playoffs. When the strike came the Reds were in second place, a half game behind the Los Angeles Dodgers in the Western Division of the National League. When Houston won the second half it gave Cincinnati the greatest reason to scream "foul play". For the fans of Cincinnati, as in many other cities throughout the country, the split season had robbed the game of its continuity and to a greater extent diluted the tradition the tradition of the national habit.

While the Astros had enjoyed the brief fruits of their victory and the joy of Nolan Ryan throwing an unprecedented fifth no-hitter, they nevertheless fell to the Dodgers, three games to two, in the mini playoffs. The Dodgers nearly saved the game from its chagrin on the left arm of 20-year old Fernando Valenzuela's incredible screwball. The pudgy Mexican southpaw, unable to speak a trace of English, began his official rookie season with a shutout and then notched seven more victories (four of which were shutouts) before being dealt his first loss. Although the league managed to catch up with him, his league-leading 180 strikeouts, 137 record, and 2.48 earned run average were enough to prompt Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda to thank the heavens and not the Mexican League for his coming.

In the National League East the first half went to the Phillies and the second half to Montreal although St. Louis had the best combined record. In the end, in the cold at Montreal, the Expos were able to nail down their first division flag only to fall victim to the Dodgers in the championship series behind the heroic eighth-inning homer of Steve Garvey, which tied the series at two games each, and on the final day when Rick Monday hit a ninth inning homer to bring the Dodgers the flag.

For the Phillies, winner of the World Series a year before, their only consolation was in Pete Rose, who broke Stan Musial's National League hit mark (3630) on the day the season resumed.

In the American League Western Division Billy Martin got his Oakland charges off to an 18-2 effort behind a daring running game, amongst other tactics to have the press dub his style, "Billy Ball". The A's played well enough to win the first leg of the season. In the second half Kansas City managed to restore some of last season's grandeur to win the division. But they could not get past Oakland in the mini-playoffs, losing in three straight games. Even George Brett, who managed.390 the year before, could only muster a respectable .314 average.

Over in the Eastern division the Yankees were able to hold together to find themselves two games over Baltimore at strike time. But in the second half the league's eventual Cy Young winner, Rollie Fingers, came out of the bullpen again and again to lead the Milwaukee Brewers to a second half victory behind 28 saves and an incredible 1.04 earned run average.

In the playoffs preceding the playoffs, the Yankees Graig Nettles was unreal at third base, and Goose Gossage was somewhere beyond unreal out of the bullpen to win the first two games of the series. Milwaukee recovered to take back two games but could not best the Yankees in the finale behind the combination of Ron Guidry, rookie Dave Righetti, and Gossage.

A fight at the victory party between Reggie Jackson and Nettles helped only to sell more newspapers as the Yankees easily ended the reign of "Billy Ball" with a clean sweep of the championship series.

The final embarrassment season came at World Series time when George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, held a press conference in which he apologized to the people of New York for the poor showing of the Yankees in the World Series. Steinbrenner, who had Bob Lemon holding the managerial reins after firing Gene Michael in September, did congratulate the Dodgers on their victory but the dying echo of his controlled tirade had all the conviction of a Yankee loss and not a Dodger victory.

During the heat of play, which saw the Dodgers snap back from a two-game deficit, Steinbrenner got a broken hand as a result of a fight with a fan in an elevator at the hotel in L.A. But it was not enough to incite his disgruntled troops to victory in the final game at Yankee Stadium, which easily went to the Dodgers, 9-2, behind Burt Hooton's knuckle curve ball.

In a way, the madness continued into the off-season when Frank Robinson and Henry Aaron were elected into the Hall of Fame. Robinson was satisfied enough, but that Aaron, baseball's all-time home run champion, was not elected unanimously, caused many a head to shake.

And the final sadness came in January when Red Smith, dean of American sportswriters, died in his home of a heart attack.

» NEXT: 1998