The never-before-told story of the momentous season torn in half by the bitter players strike. 1981 was a watershed moment in American sports, when players turned an oligarchy of owners into a game where they had a real voice. Midway through the season, a game-changing strike ripped baseball apart, the first time a season had ever been stopped in the middle because of a strike. Marvin Miller and the MLB Players Association squared off against Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and the owners in a fight to protect players’ rights to free agency and defend America's pastime. Though a time bomb was ticking as the 1981 season began, the game rose to impressive, and now legendary, heights. Pete Rose chased Stan Musial's National League hit record and rookie Fernando Valenzuela was creating a sensation as the best pitcher in the majors when the stadiums went dark and the players went on strike. For the first time in modern history, there were first- and second-half champions; the two teams with the overall best records in the National League were not awarded play-off berths. When the season resumed after an absence of 712 games, Rose's resumption of his pursuit, the resurgence of Reggie Jackson, the rise of the Montreal Expos, and a Nolan Ryan no-hitter became notable events. The Dodgers bested their longtime rivals in a Yankees-Dodgers World Series, the last classic matchup of those storied opponents. Sourcing incredible and extensive interviews with almost all of the major participants in the strike, Split Season: 1981 returns us to the on- and off-field drama of an unforgettable baseball year.
"[A] delightful, opinionated history… Katz brilliantly describes the bitter, fruitless, yearlong negotiations aimed at determining a team's compensation for the loss of a free agent player… A superior addition to the venerable genre of baseball season accounts."
Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"In 1981 I had just turned 21 and had saved up enough money to buy a Greyhound bus ticket across the country. My goal was to see as many new cities, catch as many cool gigs and most certainly see as much baseball as possible. I succeeded at the first two but that summer's strike kept me from seeing even a single game on my 3 week trip. Jeff Katz's fascinating and gripping book lets me know who was to blame and how it all went down with humor, attention to detail and an almost a horror film's inevitability. I knew what was going to happen, I knew how it was going to end but Katz kept me captive and turning pages until that frustrating year was over."
Steve Wynn, musician ,The Baseball Project and The Dream Syndicate
