Woman known "to have saved baseball" selected to the Supreme Court!

salsadancer7

SatelliteGuys Master
Original poster
Jun 1, 2004
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South Florida
....This thread is not to debate whether she deserves to be in or not. This is not whether she has liberal or conservative views or not...this is just a nice story of HUGE Yankee fan that did good!

WASHINGTON — Federal judges are rarely famous or widely celebrated. Yet during a brief period in 1995, Judge Sonia Sotomayor became revered, at least in those cities with major league baseball teams.

She ended a long baseball strike that year, briskly ruling against the owners in favor of the players.

The owners were trying to subvert the labor system, she said, and the strike had “placed the entire concept of collective bargaining on trial.”

After play resumed, The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that by saving the season, Judge Sotomayor joined forever the ranks of Joe DiMaggio, Willie Mays, Jackie Robinson and Ted Williams. The Chicago Sun-Times said she “delivered a wicked fastball” to baseball owners and emerged as one of the most inspiring figures in the history of the sport.

Judge Sotomayor is now high on lists that lawyers and politicians have assembled of possible replacements for Justice David H. Souter of the Supreme Court.

Part of the reason is her approach on the bench, which she displayed as a trial judge in the baseball strike and for the last 11 years has shown as a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, based in New York City. She questions lawyers vigorously, and delivers what her admirers say are crisp, forceful and reasoned decisions.

Congrats to a HUGE baseball fan!:up:up:up ...and a fellow Puerto Rican....:p
 
Too bad she couldn't have cleared things up sooner, as in 1994. My Indians were expected to compete that year and we had debatabley the best roster in the Bigs. Of course though, in Cleveland's typical no-luck fashion, the season was derailed by the strike.
 
Too bad she couldn't have cleared things up sooner, as in 1994. My Indians were expected to compete that year and we had debatabley the best roster in the Bigs. Of course though, in Cleveland's typical no-luck fashion, the season was derailed by the strike.

I thought it was Montreal's year to take it all that year. All I ever heard is that they were the sure-fire best to take the series had there not been a strike.
 
My Reds were in first place too. :(

The Rangers were in first place in their division with a record 10 games UNDER .500
 
I wonder how small market fans feel about her pro-union decision that purely based on labor politics. She was wrong than, but that is not really surprising.

Pandering pick, nothing more...............
 
I wonder how small market fans feel about her pro-union decision that purely based on labor politics. She was wrong than, but that is not really surprising.

Pandering pick, nothing more...............

There is always one the crowd....and if it weren't for her "pandering".....you might have two or three years without baseball....:rolleyes:

The owners have shown over and over and over again throughout baseball history that they can never be trusted....
 
Explosion?

The woman that saved hockey would be my pick. I don't know who that is, because she had the sense to stay out of it and let the free market do its job.

Let's review the baseball strike.

Unions are based on a pretty simple concept. Workers and owners (and that, at the end of the day means customers) bargain about labor costs. Lots of variations on that, but that is pretty much it.

This "union", however, has no interest in bargaining. The owners, representing us, the customer, came up with plan after plan after plan, and this "union" just wanted to give them, which is to say us, no assurance of what the labor cost would be. They refused to bargain in good faith, or at all. (They also, as it turned out, wanted to cheat by commiting 10s of 1000s of drug felonies, but lets leave that for another day).

So they were to be permanently replaced. A heroic thing for the owner to do for us. Of course, there would be no permanent replacements, rather this "union" would begin to bargain, as the other 3 sports unions and every other union in the world does, about labor costs. We would have what the other 3 sports have. What we, the customers, deserve.

That, after sacrificing a season, was stolen from us, and the system is still broken. We sacrificed a hockey season and that time WE won. Who can say that hockey players are "exploited" or any thing like that?

Now understand how the NLRB works. As a part of the executive branch, it has 5 members, 3 from the current president's party. It voted 3-2 for the players and against the customers. Since the executive branch has no injuntion power, they have to get a judge to rubber stamp their findings. Judges do that all the time. Its a non-thinking part of their job and NBD.

There are plenty of reasons to resist this nomination, and to treat this president in the same way the previous one was, as turnabout is fair play. All of these are OT. If you are forming your opinion on this important issue based on the baseball strike, you need serious help.
 
Explosion?

The woman that saved hockey would be my pick. I don't know who that is, because she had the sense to stay out of it and let the free market do its job.

Let's review the baseball strike.

Unions are based on a pretty simple concept. Workers and owners (and that, at the end of the day means customers) bargain about labor costs. Lots of variations on that, but that is pretty much it.

This "union", however, has no interest in bargaining. The owners, representing us, the customer, came up with plan after plan after plan, and this "union" just wanted to give them, which is to say us, no assurance of what the labor cost would be. They refused to bargain in good faith, or at all. (They also, as it turned out, wanted to cheat by commiting 10s of 1000s of drug felonies, but lets leave that for another day).

So they were to be permanently replaced. A heroic thing for the owner to do for us. Of course, there would be no permanent replacements, rather this "union" would begin to bargain, as the other 3 sports unions and every other union in the world does, about labor costs. We would have what the other 3 sports have. What we, the customers, deserve.

That, after sacrificing a season, was stolen from us, and the system is still broken. We sacrificed a hockey season and that time WE won. Who can say that hockey players are "exploited" or any thing like that?

Now understand how the NLRB works. As a part of the executive branch, it has 5 members, 3 from the current president's party. It voted 3-2 for the players and against the customers. Since the executive branch has no injuntion power, they have to get a judge to rubber stamp their findings. Judges do that all the time. Its a non-thinking part of their job and NBD.

There are plenty of reasons to resist this nomination, and to treat this president in the same way the previous one was, as turnabout is fair play. All of these are OT. If you are forming your opinion on this important issue based on the baseball strike, you need serious help.

My posting had nothing to do with what her political stance is, was or will be. Whether she is liberal, conservative or moderate. She was the current president's pick and she has been known to be the woman/person that saved baseball.....by the media and the union....and some fans. I will not qoute on her politics because this is not the forum to do so.

There was never an opinion formed at no time whats so ever.....so if you think I was forming an opinion on her nomination due to the connection to Major League baseball....maybe you should not take yourself so serious....;)
 
"Saved" is an awfully strong word. No offense to the new Justice, but the state of baseball at that time must have been so low for her court order against changing the rules of negotiation counts as a victory of historic proportions.

Personally, I think Cal Ripken did just as much to "save" Baseball as Ms. Sotomayor. After all, it was Ripken who in the following September of 1995 broke Lou Gherig's historic Iron-Man record. That feat reinvigourated fans everywhere. But "saved" baseball?

Neither of them saved anything. The game goes on. Always had and always will.
 
Mark McGuire and sammy Sosa were the ones usually credited with saving baseball. In hindsight, maybe steroids should be thanked. After that shameful strike, the players had further separated themselves from the working class giants of baseball's past and fan support was at an all-time low. The home-run race between Mcguire and Sosa brought the fans back out and ushered in a new era of hitter dominance that was sorely lacking. A federal judge siding with millionaire "labor workers" had nothing to do with saving baseball.
 
"Saved" is an awfully strong word. No offense to the new Justice, but the state of baseball at that time must have been so low for her court order against changing the rules of negotiation counts as a victory of historic proportions.

Personally, I think Cal Ripken did just as much to "save" Baseball as Ms. Sotomayor. After all, it was Ripken who in the following September of 1995 broke Lou Gherig's historic Iron-Man record. That feat reinvigourated fans everywhere.

Agreed.

I'd like to throw in another things that may also have helped out:

Longtime AL doormats Cleveland and Seattle (HD, no offense, but prior to the Tribe moving to Jacobs Field, they had a rough stretch of baseball) rising up from the ashes. The Mariners had an inspiring feel-good season, and the Indians' super season made them a wondrous sight to watch.
 
The Expos would have beat the Indians in 6 that year :)
The Expos had an awesome team that year. An outfield of Alou, Grissom, and Walker, with Randell White as their 4th outfielder. An infield of Cliff Floyd, Lansing, Cordero, and Berry. Pedro Martinez and their Ace and Wetteland as their closer.
 
Another small market team, my Royals, won 14 games in a row right before the strike ended the '94 season... who knows, they could have surfed on that wave all the way to the World Series... Cone and Appier would have made a stalwart anchor to the rotation in the playoffs.
 
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