The pages featured almost everything you’d expect for this time of year.
In April of 1995, you would have come across, among other things in the Times Herald’s sports section: Coverage of the Buffalo Sabres’ successful push into the postseason; a front-page story on the Buffalo Bills’ selection of Ruben Brown in the first round of the NFL Draft and signing stories on the St. Bonaventure basketball team’s three spring additions: Daks Williams, Antoine Wills and David Capers.
You would have even seen a story on Dick Vitale’s visit to Bona as the keynote speaker at the biennial Dick Joyce Sports Symposium.
The only thing missing from the OTH’s day-to-day coverage of the busiest month in sports?
Major League Baseball results.
It was 25 years ago next week that MLB players finally lifted the strike that produced, up until that point, the longest work stoppage in major professional sports. But because an agreement wasn’t reached until April 2, the start of the 1995 season didn’t take place until April 26, after an abbreviated spring training.
That was the last time an MLB season started after its regularly scheduled opener …
Until now.
Opening Day, the collective height of optimism for all 30 teams, one of the most underrated days on the sporting calendar, was supposed to be tomorrow. And given that these were the first real games since the sign-stealing scandal that rocked MLB in the offseason, this figured to be the most interesting Day One in a while.
All eyes surely would have been on the Astros, the team at the center of the sign-stealing controversy, who will almost certainly be the target of every opposing fan base — and potentially a few pitchers — this year.
Thursday was also going to mark the debuts for Gerrit Cole with the Yankees and Mookie Betts with the Dodgers, plus the start of an entire season with Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette and Cavan Biggio at the top of the lineup for the nearby Toronto Blue Jays.
Instead, MLB is one of the myriad major sports leagues whose seasons have either been canceled entirely or are in flux as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak and the monumental social changes it’s created.
And that, aside from the fact that this one was outside of anyone’s control, is the primary difference between now and the MLB-less world in ‘95.
At least then there were other things to take our minds off the quarreling between baseball’s players and owners: the Sabres had snuck into the NHL playoffs as a No. 7 seed; Michael Jordan had just recently returned to the NBA; UCLA rallied around injured star Tyus Edney to win its first NCAA championship since 1975.
And at least in those early April days there was a set timetable for MLB’s return.
Now, though, there are no such sporting distractions to deviate from the fact that baseball won’t be played Thursday. Now, we’re left to ponder when — and if — it will be played at all in 2020, from the MLB campaign to the local NYCBL, high school and Little League seasons.
And it’s the wondering, the potential for a lost year, that overcasts what is supposed to be a day synonymous with what spring entails.
The abrupt and early end to the 1994 season, caused by the official walkout of players on Aug. 12, soured what had been a compelling summer from both a team and individual standpoint.
Tony Gwynn, batting .394 at the time, had a legitimate chance to become the first .400 hitter since Ted Williams in 1941. Matt Williams, with 43 home runs, was on pace to tie Roger Maris’ then-single season record of 61.
Cal Ripken Jr.’s chase of Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games played record was put on hold. The Montreal Expos — yes, the Expos, with the best record in the National League — missed out on perhaps their best chance at a World Series appearance.
“We picked a bad season to have a good year,” the Mariners’ Ken Griffey Jr., who had hit an American League-leading 40 home runs, said at the time.
It’s that recollection of what happened some 25 years earlier, and the new reality created by the coronavirus, that makes you wonder what we might miss out on this summer … what might be soured as a result an unprecedented sports standstill.
Aging Angels slugger Albert Pujols needs just five home runs to surpass Willie Mays for fifth on the all-time list. Aroldis Chapman needs 27 saves to become only the 31st pitcher in MLB history to reach 300 for his career.
Justin Verlander (3,000 innings pitched), Jon Lester (200 wins) and Yadier Molina (2,000 hits) are all on pace to reach major milestones.
The fact that Opening Day will come and go without a pitch being thrown is the latest sobering reminder of where we stand, both in sports and society, at the moment. Much like the suspension of the players’ strike on April 2, 1995, we have to hope that something can be salvaged of this in the end.
(J.P. Butler, Bradford Publishing Company group sports editor, can be reached at jbutler@oleantimesherald.com)
