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The 3 most surprising things we have learned from the MLB lockout

By Noah Yingling

Mar 26, 2020; Los Angeles, California, USA; The gates are chained and locked at Dodger Stadium. Opening day between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Mar 26, 2020; Los Angeles, California, USA; The gates are chained and locked at Dodger Stadium. Opening day between the San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Dodgers was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports /
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MLB player and AL MVP Shohei Ohtani
Mar 1, 2021; Tempe, AZ, USA; Los Angeles Angels Shohei Ohtani #17 poses during media day at Tempe Diablo Stadium. Mandatory Credit: MLB photos via USA TODAY Sports /

Want to see an MLB player’s picture on an MLB site? Sorry!

MLB.com did not even exist the last time MLB and the MLBPA had a work stoppage. In fact, Internet Explorer hadn’t even been invented yet, let alone Google Chrome, Safari, etc., which were created years or a decade or more later.

As a result, you may not have known this. MLB.com and their individual team sites cannot use a player’s likeness during the CBA because MLB.com … is the website home of MLB, not the players.

The players are still listed but no pictures are allowed because they don’t an agreement with the MLBPA.

For those of you that are old enough to remember the ramifications of the 1994-95 MLB strike, there were going to be “replacement players” before the strike was settled in court. Those replacement players were never allowed to be part of the MLBPA if they ever reached the majors themselves after the strike.

So, if you played video games in the late 1990s or early 2000s, those replacement players are not in the games because you had to be a member of the MLBPA. The most notable names that fell into this category are:

  • Former first baseman/outfielder and current MLB Network personality Kevin Millar (e.g. renamed Anthony Friese in MVP Baseball 2005)
  • Pitcher Brendan Donnelly
  • The late pitcher Cory Lidle
  • Pitcher Kerry Lightenberg
  • Pitcher Ron Mahay
  • Infielder Frank Menechino (currently the White Sox hitting coach)
  • Infielder and current Red Sox broadcaster Lou Merloni
  • Catcher Damian Miller
  • First baseman Pete Rose Jr.
  • Outfielder Shane Spencer
  • Pitcher Jamie Walker

Those players, often, could not have merchandise in their names either and, in the case of some (Millar, Donnelly, Spencer, Miller, etc.), if they won a World Series, they could not be included in World Series commemorative merchandise.

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