Major Leagues Prepare To Open Camps In Peace Pitchers And Catchers Ready To Report For Spring Training
For the past few years, those in baseball have spent much of their time trying to pick up the pieces and put them back together. Now they’ll begin to find out how closely the reconstructed national pastime resembles the version of the early 1990s, before the sport’s leaders began following a doomsday script.
Spring-training camps open in Florida and Arizona this week - training begins Thursday, when the pitchers and catchers of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Cleveland Indians and Texas Rangers are scheduled to report - and times are good for baseball. The team owners and major-league players finally ratified a labor agreement in the final weeks of 1996, ensuring peace at least through the 2000 season.
Fans certainly haven’t forgotten the 232-day players’ strike that wiped out the 1994 World Series and led the owners to open spring-training camps in ‘95 with replacement players. But baseball people say they believe that the healing process is well under way.
Baseball is coming off its first uninterrupted season since ‘93, and its centerpiece franchise - the New York Yankees - is coming off its first World Series title since 1978.
A search committee to locate a full-time commissioner has been appointed, and representatives of the owners, players and umpires had some relatively civil discussions last week in an attempt to heal the wounds from last September’s Roberto Alomar spitting incident.
Virtually every team that doesn’t already have a new ballpark, it seems, has one on the way.
“It reminds me of the old days,” acting commissione Bud Selig said last week. “I’m excited. The storm clouds are gone. The internal differences between the clubs are gone.
“This is the first time in a long time things have been this good, and you don’t know how good it feels.”
It will be an historic year for baseball, featuring the first regular-season games between American League and National League clubs. Interleague play begins on June 12.