The 1981 baseball season was such an odd year for many different reasons due to the player’s strike mid-season. Between May and August, 713 MLB games. Due to the work stoppage, the league came up with an idea that would have first-half division winners and second-half winners play in a playoff system never seen before. The division winner of the first half would play the division winner of the second half in a five-game series. The winner would then play the more traditional Championship Series to determine who would go on to the World Series.
While the playoffs saw plenty of great games and great story lines (See “Blue Monday” as one example), there were two teams on the outside looking in who were not too happy with the format: The Cincinnati Reds and the St. Louis Cardinals.
Looking at the strike-altered 1981 MLB season
The Cardinals boasted a great lineup anchored with 1979 co-MVP Keith Hernandez, George Hendrick, and Gary Templeton to go along with good pitching. The acquisition of Bruce Sutter, the best closer in the game and the 1979 Cy Young Award winner, further strengthened this.
The Reds still had members of the Big Red Machine making contributions like Johnny Bench, George Foster and Dave Concepcion. Tom Seaver and Mario Soto were the two aces in the rotation, with Seaver compiling a 14-2 record to lead the league in wins.
So, why were they left out? Well, each team had the better overall record over the course of the regular season, but because of this split division winner format, both were left out of the playoffs. The Cardinals came in second in each half, but would have beaten the Montreal Expos by 2.0 games overall if there were only one division winner.
The Reds did the exact same thing, but they were even more cheated since they had the best record in baseball overall, yet watched from home. In fact, before their final game in that season, they unveiled a banner which read “Baseball’s Best Record 1981”… not much of a consolation prize. It’s a great “what if” for Reds fans everywhere because they wanted to see if there was one more World Series title for the Big Red Machine.
Fast forward to 1994 and there were more “what ifs” than ever before. Montreal, which haven’t been in the playoffs since that ‘81 season, were in first with the best record in baseball when the strike happened in August. A lot of people believed they may have won it all, which might have gone a long way for them to stay in Montreal and not move to Washington D.C.
Even players were cheated out of some possible records, most notably Tony Gwynn. He ended that season at .394. The closest anyone has come to hitting .400 in a season since Ted Williams in 1941. Gwynn, in my mind, had the most legitimate shot to match Williams I’ve ever seen. He could have easily hit a little over .400 the rest of the way to make it.
Matt Williams of the San Francisco Giants was on pace to break Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs. This one was a bit more of a stretch, but we’ll never know. We did get to see that record fall four years later with the Mark McGwire/Sammy Sosa chase.
Hopefully we will never see any more stoppages like those two as they were certainly a black eye to the game.