1981: A Summer Without Baseball

June 12, 1981, 40 years ago: The Major League Baseball Players Association goes on strike. They had done so before, in 1972, leading to the cancellation of, depending on the team, 6 to 9 games. This time, there would be more.

The season to that point had already been very interesting. Fernando Valenzuela, a 20-year-old Mexican pitching for the Los Angeles Dodgers, won his 1st 8 starts, sparking "Fernandomania."

Carlton Fisk, led go by the Boston Red Sox, signed with the Chicago White Sox, and, in his 1st game for his new team, hit a home run against his old team. Tom Seaver, the Met legend now pitching for the Cincinnati Reds, and Steve Carlton of the Philadelphia Phillies each recorded his 3,000th career strikeout. Carlton became the 1st lefthander to do so.

This cover with Seaver was actually released during the Strike.

One of the things Carlton was known for was his refusal to talk to the media, leading to a joke: "The two best lefthanded pitchers in baseball don't speak English: Fernando Valenzuela and Steve Carlton."

Of course, Valenzuela's weight brought on the old lines about Detroit Tigers pitcher Mickey Lolich: He was a "hefty lefty" and a "portly portsider." The joke was that he knew one word in English: "Beer." Hosting The Tonight Show, taped in the Los Angeles suburb of Burbank, Johnny Carson said that Valenzuela had learned a new English word: "Million."

The longest game in professional baseball history was played, at McCoy Stadium in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on April 18. The Pawtucket Red Sox, the top farm team of the Boston Red Sox, hosted the Rochester Red Wings, the top farm team of the Baltimore Orioles, in a game in the Class AAA International League. After 32 innings, the game was finally suspended. On June 23, while the major league players were on strike, the game was resumed, and Pawtucket won, 3-2 in the 33rd inning. Wade Boggs played for the PawSox, Cal Ripken for the Wings.

On May 10, Charlie Lea of the Montreal Expos pitched a no-hitter against the San Francisco Giants. On May 15, Len Barker of the Cleveland Indians pitched the 1st perfect game since 1968 -- making it the 1st of my lifetime -- against the Toronto Blue Jays. A sportswriter joked, "How could it have been perfect? It was played in Cleveland.

Len Barker

On May 27, at the Kingdome in Seattle, Amos Otis of the Kansas City Royals hit a ground ball down the 3rd base line. Lenny Randle of the Seattle Mariners saw that it wasn't going to roll foul, so he dropped to the ground, and used his breath to blow the ball foul. The umpires ruled interference, and Otis was given 1st base. The Royals won 8-5.

Right before the strike began, Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros was involved in 2 milestones, neither of which helped him. On June 5, he issued the 1,777th walk of his career, making him the all-time leader, surpassing Early Wynn. It would be 2 more years before he surpassed Walter Johnson to become the all-time strikeout leader. And on June 10, he gave up a hit to Pete Rose, the 3,630th hit of Rose's career, tying Stan Musial as the National League's all-time leader.

Nolan Ryan

But on June 12, Marvin Miller, Director of the Players' Association since 1966, announced that negotiations with Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the 26 team owners had failed: "We have accomplished nothing. The strike is on."

The owners, angry that free agency had been ordered at all in 1975, demanded compensation: A player signed as a free agent by a team should mean that the signing team should give a player not on a protected list to the team losing the preceding player. The MLBPA said no, because that would undermine the value of free agency.

Marvin Miller

So the strike was on. For a while, the owners' only action was to approve, on June 16, the sale of the Chicago Cubs from chewing gum magnate William Wrigley III, whose grandfather had bought the team in part in 1916 and wholly in 1921, for $20 million, to the Tribune Company, publisher of the Chicago Tribune and owner of a broadcast network that included the Cubs' main radio and TV stations, both named WGN. (The radio station was founded in 1924, and its call letters stood for what then-Tribune publisher "Colonel" Robert McCormick called the paper: The "World's Greatest Newspaper.")

This would enable the Company to make WGN the 1st nationwide cable-TV "superstation," giving the Cubs something only the Yankees and maybe the Dodgers had thus far had: A national fan base. Ted Turner, the broadcasting executive who owned the Atlanta Braves, decided to match that, making TBS a national cable network, and letting a national audience see Braves games regularly.

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A Summer without baseball might have been the worst thing that could have happened to me, age 11. I was more worried during the Strike of '81 that baseball as I knew it would never return than I was during the Strike of '94, which was both longer and nastier.

There wasn't even nearby minor-league ball to fill the void. During the Strike of '94, I had New Jersey's new professional team, the Class AA Eastern League's Trenton Thunder, just a half-hour's drive away. And the New Jersey Cardinals were up in Sussex County. By 2001, there would also be the Somerset Patriots, the Newark Bears, the New Jersey Jackals at Montclair State University, the Lakewood BlueClaws, the Atlantic City Surf and the Camden Riversharks. Eight teams in New Jersey. Plus the Yankees would have the Staten Island Yankees, and the Mets' farm system would include the Brooklyn Cyclones.

(Times have changed, and minor-league baseball has been devastated. The BlueClaws are now the Jersey Shore BlueClaws. The Cardinals are now the Sussex County Miners. The Thunder and the Jackals only exist as "collegiate summer league" teams. Only the Blue Claws, the Miners, the Patriots and the Cyclones remain as full-season teams.)

But in 1981? The nearest minor-league team to the house where I grew up in East Brunswick, New Jersey was the Reading Phillies, 107 miles away. The West Haven Yankees were 114 miles away. And if you think my parents were going to drive me 2 hours into Pennsylvania or Connecticut to see a live minor-league baseball game -- and pay for it -- you'd better think again.

This was the golden age of arcade video games. Along with baseball cards, it was 1 of 2 addictions I had as a kid. And there seemed little point in getting new cards, so I just got as many quarters as I could, walked up the hill to the Brunswick Square Mall, went into the arcade known as Fun-n-Games, and played away.

And waited for baseball to return.

*

And this was what the world was like while I waited for baseball to return:

In spite of the Pennant they would go on to win, the Yankees averaged only 15,804 fans per home game at the original Yankee Stadium. In addition to the strike, this was partly due to the South Bronx having deteriorated into an urban nightmare -- the Paul Newman cop drama Fort Apache, The Bronx was released in February of that year. Nobody wanted to go to The Bronx -- unless that's where your drug dealer wanted to meet and you really, really needed a fix.

It had been an awful regression for New York City, and it could be seen in film: From the style and sophistication of North by Northwest in 1959 and Breakfast at Tiffany's in 1961, to the funky seediness of Midnight Cowboy in 1969, to the desolation of Taxi Driver in 1976, to Fort Apache, The Bronx in 1981.

Baseball legends Satchel Paige, Stan Coveleski, Waite Hoyt, Joe Cronin, Smoky Joe Wood, Red Ruffing, Ted Lyons and Hank Greenberg were still alive. Like me, Mariano Rivera was 11 years old. Jorge Posada was 10, Andy Pettitte was 9, Derek Jeter was 7, Alex Rodriguez was 6, David Ortiz was 5, Jimmy Rollins was 2, Albert Pujols and CC Sabathia were 1; and David Wright, Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, Zack Greinke, Max Scherzer, Buster Posey, Clayton Kershaw, Madison Bumgarner, Giancarlo Stanton, Jose Altuve and Gerrit Cole weren’t born yet.

There had never been a Major League Baseball game in Florida or in the Rocky Mountain States. The San Diego Padres, Seattle Mariners, Texas Rangers and Toronto Blue Jays had never made the Playoffs. The Padres, Rangers, Blue Jays, the aforementioned Brewers and Astros, and the teams then known as the California Angels and the Montreal Expos had never won a Pennant. The Atlanta Braves hadn't won a Pennant since they were still in Milwaukee.

The Blue Jays, the Astros, the Angels, the Expos, the Braves since moving to Atlanta, the Royals, the San Francisco Giants since they were still in New York, the Minnesota Twins since they were the Washington Senators all the way back in 1924, the Boston Red Sox since 1918, and the Chicago White Sox since 1917 had not won the World Series.

All of those facts are no longer true.

Only 6 teams are still using the same ballparks they were using in 1981: The 2 Los Angeles-area teams, the Red Sox, the Royals, the A's and the Chicago Cubs. Only 4 NFL teams (Buffalo, Green Bay, Kansas City and New Orleans), 1 NBA team (the Knicks), and 2 NHL teams (the Rangers and, for a few more days, the Islanders) are using the same venues they were using in the Summer of '81. Yankee Stadium, Shea Stadium, Giants Stadium and the Meadowlands Arena have all been replaced, and the Nassau Coliseum is about to be.

There was an NFL team in Baltimore, but it was the Colts, not the Ravens. There was one in St. Louis, but it was the Cardinals, not the Rams. There was one in Houston, but it was the Oilers, not the Texans. The NFL was still a League where the high-profile teams were the Oakland Raiders, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Miami Dolphins and the Dallas Cowboys, but the San Francisco 49ers were about to begin their dynasty.

The Philadelphia Phillies were defending World Champions. The Raiders had won the most recent Super Bowl. The Boston Celtics were defending NBA Champions, having beaten the Houston Rockets in the Finals. The Los Angeles Lakers and the Philadelphia 76ers would be back, however. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird and Julius "Dr. J" Erving were the big names. Michael Jordan was about to play his 1st game at the University of North Carolina. The Knicks and the Nets were both nondescript teams.

The New York Islanders were in the middle of their Stanley Cup dynasty (stop laughing), and the Edmonton Oilers of Wayne Gretzky and Mark Messier hadn't won any yet. The Rangers were an aging team in transition, and the Devils were still the NHL version of the Colorado Rockies. The heavyweight champion of the world was Larry Holmes.

Bobby Carpenter of the Boston suburb of Needham, Massachusetts played his 1st NHL game a few days earlier, becoming the 1st U.S. hockey player to go directly from high school to the NHL, and both scored a goal and collected an assist for the Washington Capitals, who lost the game to the Buffalo Sabres anyway.

"The Wave" -- or, as it's known in Europe, since most people there first saw it on TV during the 1986 World Cup in Mexico, "The Mexican Wave" -- wouldn't be noticed nationwide until the Yankees played the Oakland Athletics in Game 3 of that year's ALCS. "Krazy George" Henderson claims to have invented it at an NHL game in Edmonton a year earlier. 

Current Yankee manager Aaron Boone was 8 years old. Lindy Ruff of the Devils was playing for the Buffalo Sabres. Barry Trotz of the Islanders was playing junior hockey for the Regina Pats in Saskatchewan. Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau had just graduated from Salem State University in Salem, Massachusetts. (Yes, the town where the Witch Trials were held.) David Quinn, recently fired but not yet officially replaced as head coach of the Rangers, was at the private Kent School in Cranston, Rhode Island.

Steve Nash of the Nets was 7. Ronny Deila of New York City FC was 5. Gerhard Struber of the Red Bulls was 4. Robert Saleh of the Jets was 2. Mets manager Luis Rojas would be born on September 1, Giants coach Joe Judge on December 31. Walt Hopkins of the Liberty wasn't born until 1985.

The Olympic Games have since been held in America 3 times, in Canada and Korea twice, and once each in Bosnia, France, Spain, Norway, Japan, Australia, Greece, Italy, China, Britain, Russia and Brazil. The World Cup has since been held in America, Spain, Mexico, Italy, France, Japan, Korea, Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Russia.

There were then 26 Amendments to the Constitution of the United States. The President of the United States was Ronald Reagan. George H.W. Bush was his Vice President. Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, their wives, and the widows of Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson were all still alive.

Bill Clinton was out of office, having been defeated for re-election as Governor of Arkansas the year before -- but was already planning one of his occasional comebacks. George W. Bush was running Arbusto Energy -- running it into the ground. Barack Obama had just transferred from Occidental College in Los Angeles to Columbia University in New York. Donald Trump was just beginning to screw up Manhattan real estate. Joe Biden was in his 2nd term as a U.S. Senator from Delaware. Kamala Harris was a senior in high school.

The Governor of the State of New York was Hugh Carey, the Mayor of the City of New York was Ed Koch, and the Governor of New Jersey was Brendan Byrne, with Tom Kean and Jim Florio running to replace him. Kean would win the closest election in the office's history. Eight years later, Florio would try again, and win in a landslide. Andrew Cuomo was in law school, and was helping his father, then Lieutenant Governor Mario Cuomo, set up his run for Governor the next year. Bill de Blasio was at New York University. Phil Murphy was at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Buisness.

The holder of the Nobel Peace Prize Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, for his advocacy for his fellow victims of the military dictatorship in Argentina. The Pope was John Paul II. The current Pope, Francis, then Jorge Mario Bergoglio, an Argentine like Pérez Esquivel, and was the rector of the Philosophical and Theological Faculty of San Miguel. The Prime Minister of Canada was Pierre Trudeau, and of Britain, Margaret Thatcher. The monarch of both nations was Queen Elizabeth II -- that hasn't changed.

There have since been 7 Presidents of the United States, 7 Prime Ministers of Britain and 3 Popes.

There were still living veterans of the Spanish-American War, the Philippine Campaign, the Boxer Rebellion, the Boer War, the Potemkin Mutiny, the Russo-Japanese War and the Mexican Revolution.

Aston Villa of Birmingham, the West Midlands, had won the Football League for the 1st time in 71 years (still their only title in the last 112 years). Liverpool FC had won the European Cup. Tottenham Hotspur were in the middle of back-to-back FA Cup wins; his was a rare period when they were definitively better than the real team in North London, Arsenal.

James Clavell published Noble House, Frank Herbert God Emperor of Dune, John Irving The Hotel New Hampshire, Gabriel Garcia Marquez Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Toni Morrison Tar Baby, Martin Cruz Smith Gorky Park, Paul Theroux The Mosquito Coast, and Joseph Wambaugh The Glitter Dome.

John Gardner restarted the James Bond novels, which had been exhausted following the last unpublished stories of the character's creator Ian Fleming, with Licence Renewed. Thomas Harris published Red Dragon, which introduced the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter. George R.R. Martin published Windhaven, deftly using science fiction and a restart of technology to meld the future with the past on a distant planet occupied by the descendants of Earthmen. J.K. Rowling was in high school in Tutshill, Gloucestershire, England.

No one had yet heard of Celie Harris, Kinsey Millhone, Jack Ryan, Forrest Gump, John McClane, Alex Cross, Bridget Jones, Robert Langdon, Bella Swan, Lisbeth Salander or Katniss Everdeen.

The day the Strike of '81 began saw the release of the 1st Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, produced by Star Wars' George Lucas and directed by Jaws' Steven Spielberg. The day also saw the premiere of Mel Brooks' sendup of historical epics and early film musicals, History of the World, Part I. And speaking of historical epics, well, it wasn't true history, but the day also saw the release of the original version of Clash of the Titans, a retelling of the Greek myth of Perseus.

Also released during the Strike were The Cannonball Run, Dragonslayer, The Great Muppet Caper, Bill Murray's Army comedy Stripes, Escape from New York, the original version of Arthur, Endless Love, Blow Out, Eye of the Needle, the werewolf film Wolfen, the ridiculous World War II-set soccer film Escape to Victory, and the 1st R-rated animated film that anybody could remember, Heavy Metal.

There was also Superman II, starring Christopher Reeve; For Your Eyes Only, starring Roger Moore as Bond, James Bond; and Tarzan, the Ape Man, with Miles O'Keeffe, and Bo Derek as Jane, with her real-life husband John Derek directing a film that barely escaped an X rating.

While he's not exactly a superhero, there was a Zorro film released at this time, but an unconventional one: Zorro, The Gay Blade, with George Hamilton playing both Zorro and his gay identical twin brother. As The Mark of Zorro is traditionally the film that Thomas and Martha Wayne took little Bruce to see right before they were killed, this version of Zorro was the one depicted in the 2019 film Joker, set in 1981.

Batman was still in the interregnum between Adam West and Michael Keaton; the best Batfans could do was the comic books and Olan Soule's voiceover in the Saturday morning cartoon Super Friends. Peter Davison had recently become the Fifth Doctor on Doctor Who.

In television, just a few months after Dallas revealed that J.R. Ewing had been shot by his sister-in-law/former mistress/baby mama Kristin Shepard, there was a new cliffhanger: J.R. appears to have pushed a woman over a railing and into the pool at the Southfork Ranch. His arch-enemy, Cliff Barnes, thinks the woman is Pam, Cliff's sister, and the wife of J.R.'s brother Bobby. But Kristin had returned to Dallas, and most fans through J.R. had gotten his revenge on her. The next season's premiere, it was revealed that he didn't push her: She fell because she had a drug overdose.

Luke Spencer and Laura Webber were about to get married on General Hospital. Chuck Woolery was about to leave his post as host of Wheel of Fortune, handing it over to Pat Sajak. And both turned out to be right-wing maniacs, a fact they kept hidden even during the Reagan Revolution.

The original version of Dynasty, Hill Street Blues, the superhero show The Greatest American Hero, and TV versions of Harper Valley PTA, Nero Wolfe, Walking Tall and Private Benjamin had recently premiered on TV. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, Soap, Eight Is Enough and The Muppet Show had recently been canceled; while Charlie's Angels and The Waltons soon would be.

When the Strike began, the following panelists were on Match Game: Mork & Mindy actor Robert Donner, semi-regular Patty Duke, show regular Charles Nelson Reilly, actress Betty Kennedy, former M*A*S*H star McLean Stevenson, and semi-regular Joyce Bulifant. Show regular Brett Somers was out that week, but came back the next.

Robert Kardashian was working in the music business. He was married to the former Kris Houghton. Their daughter Kim had been born the year before. Bruce Jenner was still an actor, and not winning any medals for it.

The Number 1 song in America for most of the Strike was "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes. MTV debuted in the last days of the Strike. Were they actually airing music at the time? Yes. Was it good music? For the most part, no.

Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel had a reunion concert in front of half a million people in Central Park. Prince released his album Controversy, and got booed off the stage at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, as the opening act on the Rolling Stones' tour for their album Tattoo You.

In the course of 1981, The Buzzcocks, Steely Dan and the Bay City Rollers broke up. 10,000 Maniacs, Anthrax, The Bangles, The Blow Monkeys, The Beastie Boys, The Butthole Surfers, Culture Club (these last 2 definitely not to be confused with each other), Katrina and the Waves, Metallica, Ministry, Mötley Crüe, Pet Shop Boys, Queensrÿche, Patti Smyth's band Scandal, Slayer, Sonic Youth and Suicidal Tendencies all formed.

George Harrison released "All Those Years Ago," his tribute to John Lennon, who had been killed near the end of the previous year. Bob Dylan was in his Christian rock phase. Michael Jackson was following Off the Wall up with writing the songs that would go on Thriller. Priscilla Presley had taken over Elvis Presley Enterprises, and made Elvis more money than he ever had while he was alive. Frank Sinatra just kept on touring.

Inflation has been such that what $1.00 would buy then, $2.94 would buy now. A U.S. postage stamp was 18 cents. On July 3, during the Strike, the cost of a New York Subway token went up from 60 to 75 cents. The average price of a gallon of gas was $1.35, a cup of coffee $1.04, a McDonald's meal (Big Mac, fries, shake) $2.00, a movie ticket $2.75, a new car $5,743, and a new house $83,700.

The day the Strike began, Firday, June 12, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 1,006.28. The day baseball resumed, Monday, August 10, it closed at 943.68. So the Strike was bad for the stock market.

The tallest building in the world was the Sears Tower in Chicago. Desktop computers and mobile telephones had been developed, but they were still very bulky and very slow. Nordic Mobile Telephone set up the 1st cellular telephone system, in Sweden. There was not much of an Internet. The 1st space shuttle, Columbia, had been launched earlier in the year. The Atari VCS (later renamed the Atari 2600) and the Mattel Intellivision were battling it out to be the leading home video game system.

There were heart transplants, liver transplants and lung transplants, and artificial kidneys, but the 1st artificial hearts wouldn't be tried until the next year. The birth control pill was long-established, but there was, as yet, no Viagra.

During the Strike of '81, paintball was invented in Henniker, New Hampshire. Los Angeles' drug-dealing Wonderland Gang was massacred. Race riots broke out in the English cities of Liverpool, Birmingham and Leeds. Donkey Kong premiered, launching the Mario empire. A skywalk collapsed at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, killing 114 people. Canadian charity runner Terry Fox died of cancer, and singer and hunger relief fundraiser Harry Chapin was killed in a car crash.

Charles, Prince of Wales, married Lady Diana Spencer in a ceremony watched around the world, but the fairy tale wouldn't be happily ever after. And President Ronald Reagan made the 1st nomination of a woman to the U.S. Supreme Court, Sandra Day O'Connor.

Robert Moses, and Paddy Chayefsky, and Dan Daniel, considered "the dean of American sportswriters," died. Chris Evans, and Meghan Markle, and Roger Federer were born.

*

On July 31, the players and the owners reached a compromise, negotiated in part by Raymond J. Donovan, Secretary of Labor under Reagan. (Donovan, a native of Bayonne, Hudson County, New Jersey, died 10 days ago, at the age of 90.) Teams that lost a "premium" free agent could be compensated by drawing from a pool of players left unprotected from all of the clubs, rather than just the signing club. The players agreed to restricting free agency to players with 6 or more years of major league service, instead of the previous 5.

In an unusual move, Sports Illustrated redid a cover.

Jinx? Mike Schmidt won the NL MVP again,

George Brett had another good season,

and both men's teams made the Playoffs again,

but neither would repeat as Pennant winners.

It was a minor victory for the owners, and there would be strikes again in 1985 and 1994. But baseball would resume, with the All-Star Game, originally scheduled for Cleveland Municipal Stadium on Tuesday night, July 14, moved to Sunday night, August 9, with regular-season games starting the next day.

The crowd of 72,086 was, and remains, an All-Star Game record. Valenzuela was a natural selection for the NL's starting pitcher, while Jack Morris of the Detroit Tigers was chosen for the AL.

Yankees on the AL All-Star Team were Reggie Jackson, Willie Randolph, Bucky Dent, Ron Davis, Goose Gossage, and free agent bonanza Dave Winfield. The only Met selected for the NL All-Star Team was outfielder Joel Youngblood, although Randolph, Seaver, Ryan, Eddie Murray and Ken Singleton of the Baltimore Orioles, Gary Carter of the Montreal Expos, and George Foster of the Cincinnati Reds were selected, and each of those would play for the Mets at some point in their careers.

Singleton hit a home run off Seaver in the bottom of the 2nd, but Carter homered in the 5th, and Dave Parker of the Pittsburgh Pirates did so in the 6th to give the NL the lead. The AL took a 4-2 lead in the bottom of the 6th, but Carter went deep again in the 7th, this time off Davis. And Schmidt homered off Rollie Fingers of the Milwaukee Brewers in the 8th, to give the NL a 5-4 win. Vida Blue, then with the San Francisco Giants, was the winning pitcher. Bruce Sutter of the St. Louis Cardinals got the save, and Fingers was the losing pitcher.

One exasperated reader wrote to SI with this killjoy question:

"'A big hand for baseball'? Whatever the hell for?"

As far as the standings were concerned, for only the 2nd time in history (so far; the only other time was in 1892), MLB set up a split season. The teams that were in 1st place in their Divisions when the strike began -- the Yankees, the A's in the AL West, the Phillies in the NL East and the Dodgers in the NL West -- were guaranteed spots in the Playoffs, and thus had nothing to play for when the season resumed.

On the 1st day of resumed play, Rose got his 3,631st hit, to pass Musial. Ahead of him now were only Hank Aaron with 3,771 and Ty Cobb with 4,191. Actually, it was during the Strike that a researcher discovered that one of Cobb's 1910 games was mistakenly counted twice, including 2 hits he'd gotten. So that lowered his career hit total to 4,189, and his record lifetime batting average from .367 to .366. However, Rose would still be celebrated for breaking the record when he got to 4,192, not 4,190.

On September 6, despite having won the 1st half AL East title, Yankee manager Gene Michael was fired by owner George Steinbrenner. Bob Lemon was brought back for his 2nd run as manager. On September 26, Ryan pitched the 5th no-hitter of his career, breaking the record he shared with Sandy Koufax, and against the Dodgers, Koufax's team.

On September 30, the Royals beat the Minnesota Twins, 5-2 at Metropolitan Stadium in the Minneapolis suburb of Bloomington. This was the last baseball game played at The Met. On December 20, the last event there would also be Minnesota vs. Kansas City, as the Chiefs beat the Vikings ,10-6. The next year, both the Twins and the Vikings would move into the Metrodome in downtown Minneapolis.

The Brewers won the AL East's 2nd half title, and the Expos did so in the NL East. Each franchise had begun play in 1969, and each had now notched its 1st Playoff berth. The Royals won the 2nd half title in the AL West, and the Astros in the NL West.

The Reds finished the season with the best overall record in MLB, and the Cardinals did so with the best overall record in the NL East. But neither team won their Division in either half, and thus missed the Playoffs entirely. It didn't seem fair.

Yes, this "pennant" actually exists.

And, as it turned out, none of the teams that won the 1st half Division titles won the 2nd half Division titles. Had any of them done so, then the other Playoff spot for that Division would have gone to the team with the next-best overall record.

What happened in the Playoffs? That's a post for later in the year.