The Problem

In 1994 the second half of the baseball season was cancelled due to a strike by the player’s union.  This included the playoffs and even the World Series.  When play resumed in 1995 there was a noticeable fall off in fan support and game attendance.  “America’s Pastime” and favorite game was badly hurting from an image stand point among its fans.  Attendance numbers stayed down until the 1998 season. 

That year, Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire made the Home Run ball famous.  Nike even created a new marketing slogan for baseball that year: “Chicks Dig The Long Ball”.  They were hitting the ball out of the park at record pace and were threatening some of the all-time records.  This home run race reignited fan interest and they new look game was once again a fan favorite.  Unfortunately though there was a shady underside to this race.  Steroid use!  The game was back, but at what cost?  For the next 10 years baseball would fall into the “Steroid Era” and would again have an image problem as they had to try cleaning up a mess that they could have prevented in the first place.

Steroid use started to really spread league wide this year and management seemed to turn their backs on the problem.  The fans were back, so in a way ownership was blinded by the revenue that the home run ball was brining to their clubs.  Fellow players or ownership could have stopped this problem in its prime, but the results were so good for everyone that nobody said a word.