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• #MLB LABOR STRIFE FREE#

When it comes to the necessary business of allocating blame, it's tempting to harrumph about "a pox on both their houses" and lean on the stale old chestnuts of millionaires versus billionaires. The strike finally ended when players and owners agreed to a "free-agent compensation draft," which was in place for the next four seasons. Players rightly oiled their guns for war over the matter, and the strike spanned 50 days and carved out more than 700 total games from what would've been the heart of the season, the July 4 slate among those games.

#MLB LABOR STRIFE FREE#

To say the least, this would've stripped away any semblance of the descriptor "free" in free agency and destroyed those hard-won liberties that at the time were barely six years old. Owners in essence wanted any team that lost a free agent to be compensated by receiving a player of similar worth - perceived or actual. That year players struck over the issue of free-agent compensation. The first time we were deprived of baseball on the Fourth was in 1981.

Thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic and recent labor strife within the sport, we'll have no baseball at the highest level on July 4 for just the second time since 1871. That brings us back to the summer game of baseball and its mostly enduring presence on Independence Day. Long before the Fourth of July killed John Adams in 1826 in an act of blood-soaked reprisal, Adams wrote the following in a missive to his wife, Abigail: "It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."Īdams was of course stumping for July 2, but those leisured (and capitalized) pursuits came to be associated with July 4. Although the Fourth of July wasn't formally recognized as Independence Day until 1870, it marked celebrations as early as 1777, when the War for Independence was still ongoing and the outcome still in doubt. The final joke, though, was upon Adams, as he wound up dying on a July 4. However, no less a figure than John Adams insisted that July 2 should be the exalted date on the calendar, which is when the Continental Congress voted in favor of a resolution of independence. On July 4, 1776, the Continental Congress formally adopted the Declaration of Independence, which is why the day is still celebrated in the U.S. The holiday, as you're doubtless aware, commemorates America's declared (and later realized) independence from Great Britain. That marked the first time that baseball at the recognized major-league level was played on the Fourth of July. You'll note the date - Independence Day, 1871. It would disband after the 1875 season but quickly reemerge as the National League, which of course remains with us to this day. The National Association is regarded by most as the first true major league.