The White House Strikes Out: Clinton and the 1994-95 MLB Strike [Going Public Case Study #2]
The Box Score
President Bill Clinton failed in his attempt to resolve the 1994-95 Major League Baseball strike.
Clinton first attempted to shame the owners and players into an agreement. That didn’t work.
Clinton then introduced his “Major League Baseball Restoration Act” and “went public” to pressure Congress into passing the legislation. That didn’t work either.
The strike ended on March 21, 1995, when then-U.S. District Judge Sonia Sotomayor cited owners for unfair labor practices.
This case illustrates the limited powers of the president and the difficulty presidents face when “going public” on sports.
[Note: This is the second of three case studies of presidents “going public” on sports—we examined George W. Bush’s discussion of steroids in the 2004 State of the Union address and will next look at Jimmy Carter’s boycott of the 1980 Moscow Games. The overall lesson from these case studies is that presidents are rarely successful in going public on sports, with Carter being the exception.]
The Complete Game
An MLB strike wiped out what was shaping up to be an incredible 1994 season and delayed the start of the 1995 season. Owners and players were at loggerheads over a proposed salary cap and revenue-sharing agreement, and, at the time, nothing seemed like it could break the deadlock. So, in stepped President Bill Clinton. Clinton first promised to “lock” the owners and players in the White House until they hashed out a deal while publicly shaming both sides into making that agreement. That didn’t work. He then proposed legislation and set about convincing the American public, and, by extension, the U.S. Congress, that this was the way to resolve the strike. That didn’t work either. Finally, the White House conceded defeat; the American president was no match for the likes of Bud Selig and Oral Hershiser. To add insult to injury, Clinton then had to watch as another branch of the federal government, the judiciary, settled the strike.
The story of Clinton and the 1994-95 MLB strike illustrates several points about the presidency and sports. First, presidents like to be part of the game. Presidential involvement is usually little more than fan talk (see “The Sports Talk Presidency”), but, sometimes, presidents get off the sidelines and try to use their power to make changes in the sporting world. Second, presidents have surprisingly limited power to make changes in the sporting world. Clinton had no legal authority to settle the strike, and his rhetorical efforts of “going public” failed miserably. Finally, Clinton’s case provides an object lesson for American presidents: never invest political capital in sports unless you’re guaranteed of success.
Background to the 1994-95 MLB Strike
MLB owners had complained about the astronomical rise in baseball salaries since the introduction of free agency in December of 1975 (see figure below). Before free agency, Hank Aaron was MLB’s highest-paid player at $240,000. Twenty years later, the average salary was $1.2 million, and Bobby Bonilla was making $6.3 million a year playing for the Mets—a 2,500% increase over Aaron’s salary (amazingly, Bonilla will get $500,000 a year from the Mets until he is 72).
Moreover, baseball was the only major sport without a revenue-sharing agreement, which convinced many small-market owners that they could not compete with their big-market competitors. The Pittsburgh Pirates, for example, won the NL East three years in a row to start the 1990s on the strength of a talented young roster. By 1993, however, the Pirates lost three of their biggest stars to free agency—Bonilla to the Mets ($39 million for five years), 1990 and 1992 NL MVP Barry Bonds to the Giants ($43.75 million for six years), and 1990 Cy Young winner Doug Drabek to the Astros ($19.5 million for four). These losses doomed Pittsburgh to 20 years of sub-.500 baseball.
By the 1990s, the owners were ready to go to the mattress over player salaries (for more on this case, see Ken Burn’s excellent documentary Baseball: Top of the Tenth). Baseball had seen seven previous work stoppages; in each case, the owners blinked first. This time, the owners promised themselves, things would be different.
In 1992, owners began prepping for battle by ousting commissioner Fay Vincent—mainly because he was not the wartime consiglieri owners thought they needed—replacing him with an insider, Brewers’ owner Bud Selig. By 1994, owners had amassed a “strike fund” of a billion dollars to ride out any work stoppage. That summer, the owners decided to skip the $7.8 million they were supposed to pay into the players’ pension fund. Then, on June 14, they presented a salary cap proposal they knew the players had to refuse, a proposal that players’ union director Donald Fehr estimated “would cost the players $1.5 billion in salary over the 7-year life of the contract.”
The players were ready to play hardball. They scarcely had time to read the owners’ proposal before rejecting it and announcing their plans to strike on August 12. The players timed the strike date to inflict maximum damage on the owners. By mid-summer, the players would have received most of their salary, but most of the owners’ revenue would come in later in the season, especially for the postseason teams. Dodger pitcher and player representative Orel Hershiser summed up the player’s confidence when he told the owners two days before the strike, “It doesn’t matter what we do. You’re going to get rid of [interim commissioner] Selig and [lead negotiator] Ravitch, get a new negotiating team, and you’re going cave in.” As the summer of 1994 wore on, the owners and players were no longer throwing brush-back pitches; they were throwing at heads.
The strike began on August 12, 1994, and ultimately wiped out the rest of the 1994 season, including the postseason and World Series, and delayed the start of the 1995 season. The strike was notable in several respects. First, it was nasty, which can happen when billions of dollars are on the line. Owners were upset that the average ballplayer salary had doubled in the past five years; players were upset that the owners were trying to restrict salaries. The owners had previously conspired to restrict salaries during the mid-1980s, which killed any trust the two sides might have had. And the more players and owners snipped at each other over “fairness,” the more the average fan became disgusted with the battle between “millionaires and the billionaires.”
Second, the strike was lengthy and costly. At the time, it was the longest work stoppage in sports history and the first to wipe out an entire postseason. It also ended a fantastic 1994 season. By August, “Mr. Padre” Tony Gwinn was hitting .394 with a good chance of being the first player since Ted Williams in 1941 to hit .400. Giants’ slugger Matt Williams bombed 43 home runs, 18 away from Roger Maris’ record. Albert Bell of Cleveland had a chance of winning baseball’s Triple Crown. Baseball was suddenly interesting in Quebec as the Expos sported a league-best 74-40 record. And if the owners decided to use replacement players, it would have ended Cal Ripken’s pursuit of Lou Gehrig’s record of consecutive games played. There are some MLB seasons I wouldn’t mind seeing cut short, but the 1994 season was not one of them.
Finally, and most importantly for our purposes, the 1994-95 MLB strike represented the most aggressive, and futile, political response to a professional sports work stoppage in American history.
Here I Come to Save the Day! Clinton’s Decision to Resolve the Baseball Strike
With the players and owners hopelessly deadlocked, politicians, most notably Clinton, called themselves in from the bullpen to get the save.
Before we get to how Clinton tried to resolve the strike, we should consider why he would get involved in the first place. It is always dangerous to speculate why presidents do what they do. And I should note that I have no unique insights into the mind of Clinton other than what I know from being a scholar of presidential decision-making and my specific research into this case. With that caveat in mind, let’s do a little speculating.
Clinton offered some valuable insights into his thinking at a June 1994 reception at Landerhaven Country Club outside Cleveland:
“You know, it's funny, I came to the Cleveland Airport—we're a little late because there were 500 people there when I landed, so I went around and shook hands with them—and I thought, what great passionate public issue will they be concerned about. I thought I knew America well enough, and sure enough, the first 15 people I shook hands with said, "Can't you do anything about the baseball strike?" [Laughter]
You know, as a lifelong fanatic baseball fan, I threw out the first pitch here. And I saw the Indians come out of nowhere, and they're doing so well. And in the other part of the State, by the way, the Cincinnati Reds are not doing bad, either. So for Ohio, perhaps more than any other place in America this year, we're really all happy that we're having the best baseball season in 4 years, and we hope we get a chance to see if those records can be broken and all that progress can be made.” – Bill Clinton, Remarks at a Reception for Joel Hyatt in Mayfield Heights, Ohio, July 30, 1994 [Emphasis added]
Clinton’s comments reveal three possible motivations for trying to resolve the strike. First, presidents like to respond to public demands. We expect presidents to be the voice of the people. I cannot say whether Clinton’s statement—“the first 15 people I shook hands with said, ‘Can't you do anything about the baseball strike?’"—is hyperbole or not, but I have no doubt that people asked him to resolve the strike. Baseball fans’ anger over the strike might have been all the motivation Clinton needed to get involved. However, this raises another question: how do presidents judge public opinion?
Political responsiveness to public opinion means that politicians must know what the public thinks. One way politicians gauge what the public thinks is by listening to them, which, if we take his word for it, is what Clinton did here. The obvious problem with this strategy is the opinion of some noisy constituents is not always that of the average American.
Another way is to infer what the public thinks is from media coverage, and the 1994-95 baseball strike was certainly big news on the sports pages. But while the media might set the agenda, it does not always reflect public opinion. As Bernard Cohen wrote in 1963, the press "may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” So, while many Americans might have paid attention to the strike, that does not necessarily mean they wanted the president to get involved.
A final way to understand public opinion is through national surveys, like those conducted by the Gallup Organization. Herein lay the problem for Clinton. A Gallup poll of baseball fans taken the day the players struck on August 8, 1994, showed that 72 percent opposed the Clinton administration’s attempt to settle the strike. Had Clinton listened to the polls instead of the opinions of some glad-handers at a Cleveland country club, perhaps he would have concluded that the American public didn’t want him involved in baseball after all.
A second reason that Clinton got involved is that he was a fan. In “The Sports Talk Presidency,” I show that most modern presidents are die-hard sports fans who love discussing the game. Historian John Sayle Watterson’s excellent book, The Games Presidents Play, likewise details presidents’ love affair with sports. Like most sports fans, Clinton was likely interested in seeing baseball back on the diamond.
A final and related reason for Clinton’s involvement in the 1994-95 strike is that, as president, he presumably had the power to do something about it. Let’s think about that for a moment. Most likely, you are reading this essay because you are a sports fan. Now, imagine that you magically become the next President of the United States. Might you be tempted to use the power of the White House to fix all the stuff in sports you hate? I certainly would. In my first 100 days in office, I would decree that the NFL no longer treat quarterbacks like they were playing two-hand touch, punish all floppers with mandatory 10-year prison terms, and outlaw the DH. It is good to be the King. But presidents are not kings, and, as we will soon see, Clinton soon found that he had surprisingly little power to resolve the strike.
Strike 1. Negotiation and Shame
Why Clinton got involved in the 1994-95 baseball strike is one thing; how he did so is another. We should think of the how as a two-act play: (1) negotiation and shame, and (2) legislation and going public.
The first phase of the Clinton administration’s attempt to resolve the strike was to facilitate negotiations between owners and players while publically shaming them into an agreement. This phase was about persuading both sides to agree to end the strike voluntarily.
In October 1994, Clinton announced that he appointed highly respected former Secretary of Labor Bill Usery as a “super mediator” between owners and players.
(It is important to note the difference between mediation and arbitration. Mediation requires both sides to agree to a deal. By contrast, an arbitrator makes a binding decision that both parties must follow, like it or not. While arbitration usually produces a resolution, mediation often fails, especially when two entrenched parties are far apart on the issues.)
The announcement of Usery as mediator occurred at a White House ceremony hosted by labor secretary Robert Reich and attended by player union representative Donald Fehr and acting commission Bud Selig. The setting showed Clinton meant business. However, neither Selig nor Fehr seemed too cowed by their surroundings. In a frosty exchange with reporters on the White House driveway, Fehr said that he expected the owners would stop signing free agents but promised, “We won’t let them get away with it.” Selig stood 10 feet away, looking glum and declining comment. The unhappy party then retreated to the White House for a brief meeting with President Clinton. This initial meeting was a preview of things to come: the White House was no match for disgruntled owners and players.
[From left to right] Fehr, Labor Secretary Robert Reich, Usery, and Selig. Photo by Cynthia Johnson/Getty Images
On December 23, 1994, after months of unproductive negotiations, the owners declared an impasse and imposed a salary cap. The players union immediately brought a grievance before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), arguing that such unilateral action on the part of owners violated the terms of MLB’s collective bargaining agreement. Although the owners quickly withdrew the salary cap, they then upped the ante by abolishing salary arbitration and ended an agreement not to collude on salaries. The owners’ decision would ultimately doom their cause. More on that later.
Clinton became more involved as the strike dragged into 1995. In a January 26 interview with NBC’s Tom Brokaw, Clinton issued an ultimatum: resolve the conflict by February 6 or else:
“You know, I have named Mr. Usery the mediator, and I talked to him this morning. I asked him to get the parties back together in the strike and to give me a report by February 6th, and if he couldn't get them to agree, he should actually make a proposal and tell them what he thinks they should do based on having heard all sides.” -- Bill Clinton, Interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News, January 26, 1995.
Unfortunately for Clinton and baseball fans, the February 6 deadline came and went with no movement from the players or owners.
The next day, Clinton summoned both sides to the White House, a setting again designed for maximum effect. According to presidential scholar Richard Neustadt, all presidents use the trappings of their office to win friends and influence people. After all, it is hard to say no to the leader of the free world when you’re sitting in the Oval Office. Moreover, Clinton was supremely confident in his negotiation skills (see Chapter 7 of Gary Woodward’s The Perfect Response). Clinton’s Labor Secretary Robert Reich put it like this:
“He [Clinton] smells a deal. He’d like to be the savior of the national pastime. He has heard that the two sides are at this moment in Washington. ‘Why don’t we just call them over to the White House and see how far we can get?’”
The president didn’t get far. Clinton emerged from a closed-door meeting with owners and players late at night and told the assembled press corps that negotiations had failed. Clinton then announced a new strategy, which we will consider in the next section.
As the administration attempted to negotiate a settlement, Clinton simultaneously pressured both sides by appealing directly to the American public. Most of the president’s statements hit on three main points:
(1) the strike was a greed-fueled squabble between millionaires and billionaires,
(2) this greed deprived the American public of their national pastime, and
(3) the situation should be resolved through mediation.
Consider just a few examples of Clinton’s shame-based rhetorical strategy (emphases added throughout):
“Today I would like to speak on behalf of the country because this is an unusual situation. You know, when a company goes on strike, the right to strike is protected and the workers go on strike because they and the management can't reach agreement. But they always have to consider in the end their customers and what will happen if they lose their customers. In a great event like the baseball strike, I think there's an assumption that the customers are always there. But the only thing I'd like to say to both sides is that there are a lot of little kids out there who don't want to see this season come to a close. And there are a lot of notso-little kids out there who know it's the most exciting baseball season in 40 years. And I hope that in the days ahead they will search for a way to get back together, finish this season, extend it by a few days so that all the games can be played, and the feelings of the American people that this could be one of those seasons that occurs once every four or five decades could be vindicated. I think the people really ought to be taken into consideration here, and I hope they will be.” – Bill Clinton: "Remarks Announcing the Appointment of Abner Mikva as White House Counsel and an Exchange With Reporters," August 11, 1994
[Clinton recognized the Northridge (CA) Little League team after a devastating 1994 earthquake] “How else can you explain the fact that here there is a baseball team known as the Earthquake Kids? I want to ask them to be recognized here in a minute, but I do want to note, as the spring slowly approaches, that they did something the pros couldn't: They kept baseball going.” -- Bill Clinton, Remarks at California State University at Northridge, January 17, 1995
“Well, I believe the players and the owners ought to come back together and give us a baseball season. I think they ought to give us spring training. You know, they have this feeling that baseball is always a game, not just a business. There are communities in spring training areas all over the South that are dependent on them for income and opportunity. But there are people—there's still a significant percentage of the American people, probably you and I among them, who really believe baseball is something special. And you know, there's a few hundred owners and a few hundred more players, and baseball generates $2 billion worth of revenues every year; about a thousand people ought to be able to figure out how to divide that up and give baseball back to the American people, and I hope they'll do that.” -- Bill Clinton, Interview with Tom Brokaw of NBC Nightly News, January 26, 1995
“America has been living without baseball for far too long. Now, as the strike drags on, it threatens the start of the 1995 season. It could well damage the economies of the spring training States. It is imperiling the livelihoods of tens of thousands of workers whose jobs depend on baseball. And it is trying the patience and depressing the spirits of millions of baseball fans—including me. It is time for this strike to end.
It has always been my belief—and it continues to be—that the baseball strike, like any labor dispute, should be settled through goodfaith bargaining between the parties. It was with this principle in mind that I endorsed the Secretary of Labor's proposal to appoint the best mediator around—former Labor Secretary Bill Usery— to help the parties sort out their differences.
Over the last 2 days, I have spoken with Secretary Reich and with former Secretary Usery about the status of the strike negotiations. We discussed all of the alternatives. I remain convinced that the best way to get baseball back for America is for the parties to reach their own settlement. But we cannot wait indefinitely.
This morning, I asked Bill Usery to bring the owners and the players back to the table and to step up the pace and intensity of his mediation efforts.
I have asked him to report back to me by February 6 with the progress they have made. If the parties have not reached an agreement by then—or are not on track towards a speedy settlement—I have asked Mr. Usery, if he believes it appropriate, to put forth his own recommendations for a proposed settlement between the parties.
I hope it doesn't come to that. I urge the owners and the players to give their full support to this mediation effort and to settle this unfortunate dispute themselves. It is time to put behind us the rancor and cynicism that are shadowing the American ideal of baseball. It is time to let all the excitement that the 1995 season can offer sweep away that tarnished image. It's time to ‘play ball.’” -- Bill Clinton: "Statement on the Baseball Strike," January 26, 1995
In sum, the first phase of Clinton’s attempt to resolve the strike lasted from August 1994 to February 1995 and focused on getting the owners and players to end the strike voluntarily. The political science lesson here is that presidential persuasion has its limits. No matter how charming the president is, how much he tries to shame you, or how daunting the White House might be, no amount of persuasion can move people when billions of dollars are on the line.
Strike 2. Legislation and Going Public
When the carrot does not work, turn to the stick. On February 7, 1995, Clinton abandoned his persuasive strategy for a coercive one. After late-night negotiations broke down, Clinton told the assembled press that he was now changing tact by turning to Congress:
“I have done all I could to change this situation. At my request, Bill Usery, the highly respected former Secretary of Labor, has been working very hard in mediating this dispute. He has certainly gone the extra mile, and we all owe him our thanks. But the players and owners still remain apart on their differences. Clearly they are not capable of settling this strike without an umpire. So I have now concluded, since I have no legal authority in this situation, as all of you know and have known for some time, that I should send to the Congress legislation seeking binding arbitration of the baseball dispute.”
This is not a request for a congressionally imposed solution. It is a request for the only process we have left to us to find a solution through neutral parties. And the only way to do this appears to be for Congress to step up to the plate and pass the legislation. Unless they do, we may not have baseball in 1995. – William J. Clinton, Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on the Major League Baseball Strike, February 7, 1995.
Despite Clinton’s claim that “this is not a request for a congressionally imposed solution,” that is exactly what it was. On February 8, 1995, Clinton sent a message to Congress asking them to consider his “Major League Baseball Restoration Act.” The Act would impose binding arbitration decided by a three-member panel appointed by the president.
Turning to Congress is important in two respects. First, unlike the presidency, Congress might have the power to resolve the strike. The congressional ace-in-the-hole with baseball has always been its ability to revoke MLB's antitrust immunity. Since 1922, baseball has enjoyed an exemption from the Sherman Antitrust Act thanks to the Supreme Court’s curious reasoning in Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc., v. National Baseball Clubs. (We’ll take an in-depth exploration into antitrust issues in Curt Flood and MLB’s Antitrust Exemption, but very briefly, the Sherman Antitrust Act prevents monopolies and restraints on trade.) Writing for the majority, Oliver Wendell Holmes concluded that baseball was not interstate commerce and, therefore, not subject to congressional regulation under the Commerce Clause. Holmes reasoned that it was “a mere incident” that ball clubs crossed state lines to play games. Moreover, Holmes wrote that baseball was about “personal effort, not related to projection,” and therefore was “not a subject of commerce,” never mind that baseball players are paid salaries, owners turn a tidy profit, and fans pay to see games.
Two future Supreme Court cases—Toolson v. New York Yankees (1953) and Flood v. Kuhn (1972)—upheld the Federal decision. However, the Court recognized that baseball’s exemption was an “anomaly” and called upon Congress to bring baseball under the umbrella of the Sherman Act. Indeed, Congress introduced 23 bills to resolve the 1994-95 strike, most using the threat of revoking baseball’s antitrust exemption as leverage.
Second, Clinton’s new legislative strategy necessitated a shift in rhetorical focus. When Clinton spoke to the American public during the negotiation-and-shame phase, his audience was always MLB owners and players. Taking the case to Congress shifted the audience.
Clinton needed leverage with Congress. The 1994 midterm elections were a disaster for Democrats, and Republicans now controlled the Senate and House. Not only is a divided government a nightmare for presidents in general, but the GOP leadership appeared reluctant to get involved in this specific case. The new Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich (R-GA), said, “I’m not sure Congress is the right place to try to organize the national pastime.” Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-KS) said of the strike, “We’re very, very reluctant to have Congress get involved.”
Clinton recognized that his Major League Baseball Restoration Act faced long odds, saying, “I know that the people in Congress say they have other pressing business, and they certainly do have other pressing business. I regret very much having to send this legislation there, but spring training is just 9 days away, and I think many Americans consider this pressing.” If Clinton was going to save baseball, he had to put the screws to congressional Republicans.
Clinton went public in several speeches urging Congress to pass his legislation. Much of the rhetoric centered on the familiar theme that greed prevented Americans from enjoying their national pastime. Two things were new, however. The first is that Clinton called upon Congress to force a settlement. The second was Clinton a change of target from MLB to Congress. Here, Clinton pursued a classic going public strategy designed to pressure Congress into acting:
“At least when the bill goes to the Congress, the American people can make themselves heard one way or the other on the legislation and Congress can consider it….
There is something the American people can do. They can tell their Senator or Representative whether they feel this is a proper case for binding arbitration. Last fall, for the first time in 90 years, there was no World Series. If something goes on for that long without interruption, seeing our Nation through wars and dramatic social changes, it becomes more than a game, more than simply a way to pass time. It becomes part of who we are. And we've all got to work to preserve that part.
So again I say, I call on the players and the owners to go back, to keep talking, to work through this. There is still time. I will send the legislation to Congress with the full expectation that Congress will consider it in light of what they believe their constituents want, which their constituents will have the opportunity to tell them…
I'm going to send it up tomorrow, and I would like to have it considered expeditiously, yes. I haven't looked at the congressional calendar; I don't even know what their options are for that. But I think it should be considered expeditiously. I think, obviously it can't be done in a day or two, anyway, so the Congress will have time to hear from the American people, pro and con. This is an unusual request; I realize that. There is no baseball commissioner. We lost the World Series. Millions upon millions of dollars in lost income is at stake, and a lot more as well. So I hope they will consider it expeditiously. I think that's the only way it could lead to a season in '95.” -- William J. Clinton: "Remarks and an Exchange With Reporters on the Major League Baseball Strike," February 7, 1995
Question from Reporter. “Mr. President, on another topic, there's been a lot of talk on Capitol Hill today, and a lot of opposition from Republicans to your suggestion that Congress get involved in the baseball strike. Can you tell us about that?”
The President. “I'll send the legislation up there. I think that this is—they should be reluctant; I was reluctant; we're all reluctant. If we had a baseball commissioner, we wouldn't— none of us would have been in here. I respect their reluctance. What I think will happen is, I'll send the legislation up, they'll hear from the American people, and they'll make their own decision.” -- William J. Clinton: "Remarks Announcing the Nomination of Michael Carns To Be Director of Central Intelligence and an Exchange With Reporters," February 8, 1995
Congress did wade into the fray, at least tepidly. Clinton’s Major League Restoration Act was introduced in the House by Pat Williams (D-MT) as H.R. 870 and in the Senate by Ted Kennedy (D-MA) as S. 376. Neither bill reached the floor. In addition, Congress introduced another 21 bills to resolve the strike, most threatening to revoke baseball’s antitrust exemption if the strike was not resolved—a much tougher policy than Clinton proposed. Only four of these bills made it out of committee, and none came to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote.
We can draw two conclusions about presidential power from this stage of the MLB strike. First, presidents usually need Congress. Clinton belatedly recognized that he lacked the formal or informal power to resolve the strike. Congress, however, did possess that power.
The second conclusion is that Congress rarely plays ball with the president. Congress has its own priorities, and these priorities are often at odds with the White House. That is why presidents “go public” to pressure Congress. But Americans, too, have their own priorities and views, and presidents can rarely move the needle of public opinion much, if at all. Recall that a Gallup poll of baseball fans taken the day the players struck on August 8, 1994, showed that 72 percent opposed the Clinton administration’s attempt to settle the strike. By January 1995, the number of people who felt that Clinton should stay out of the situation increased to 78 percent. It is safe to say that most members of Congress did not feel much pressure from their voters to resolve the baseball strike.
In short, Clinton faced a Congress indifferent to his proposals and an American public who largely felt he shouldn’t be involved in the first place.
Strike 3. Federal Agencies and Courts as Umpires
As Clinton first pursued his negotiation strategy and then his legislative strategy, other entities in the federal government were also involved with the MLB strike. Recall the players brought a grievance before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—an independent federal agency charged with resolving disputes between employers and unions—over the owners’ unilateral actions to restrict player salaries outside of a collective bargaining agreement. The NRLB sided with the players and then asked the U.S. Court for the Southern District of New York to consider its petition.
On March 31, 1995, then-U.S. District Court Judge Sonya Sotomayor considered the case on an expedited basis—she heard from no witnesses or allowed any amicus briefs—and granted an injunction that temporarily restored the previous collective action agreement. The players had won, at least temporarily, and ended the strike the next day.
Sotomayor’s ruling had to be a bittersweet moment for Clinton. The strike was over, which was his goal in the first place. Nevertheless, the fact that another branch of government settled the strike after Clinton invested so much time and effort in the matter had to stick in his craw. The famed New York Times sportswriter, George Vecsey, said it best:
“ONLY one week away from the grubby spectacle of Oil Can Boyd's comeback, we want action. Instead, we're getting a civics lesson: The Impotence of the Executive Branch. The President as Helpless Giant… ‘I have done all I could to change the situation,’ President Clinton said, adding that he will recommend that Congress pass legislation for binding arbitration between the two sides. It was not exactly the public spanking the two sides deserved. Instead, it was a lecture on the separation of powers.
You see, class, there are certain limits to what the Executive Branch can do. This was built into the system by our Founding Fathers.
He [Clinton] did leave the lingering impression that the President of the United States should do something about baseball.
We want baseball, performed by great athletes. Some of us wanted a bipartisan horsewhipping. We wanted a strong man on horseback. We got a political science seminar.”
The Bottom of the Ninth
The case of Clinton and the 1994-95 MLB strike illustrates three lessons about the presidency and sports.
Lesson #1. Presidents sometimes like to “save” sports. Clinton is not the only one. Teddy Roosevelt told Ivy League football coaches to make the game safer or else. George W. Bush tried to rid the sports world of steroids. And Donald Trump tried to save the national anthem from Colin Kaepernick.
Lesson #2. Presidents have limited power to “save” sports. Clinton had no real authority to resolve the baseball strike. He failed to persuade owners and players to settle, despite investing personal effort and using the trappings of the White House. He failed to get his legislation passed. And he failed to move public opinion with his going public strategy.
Lesson #3. Presidents should not invest political capital on sports without a reasonable expectation of success. Clinton should have known he had limited formal and informal powers to resolve the strike before wading into the matter. And the baseball strike was nowhere near the top of the political agenda for anyone. If a president is going to step to the plate, he should be confident of getting a hit. If not, the president should resign himself to catcalls from the dugout.
