One year ago, we didn’t know when, or if, baseball would be played in 2022. About a month earlier, moments after the collective bargaining agreement expired without a new one in place, the 30 Major League Baseball owners locked out the players and kicked off the first work stoppage in 27 years. We had no idea how long it would last, but we knew it would be ugly.
As we rang in the new year, MLB still had not made a new proposal on core economics to the players, despite commissioner Rob Manfred’s assertion that the league instituted the lockout “out of a desire to drive the process forward to an agreement now.” When that proposal came, 43 days after the lockout began, the players were insulted by the offer.
The two sides traded jabs back and forth in the press, with MLB threatening to declare that negotiations were at an impasse. We watched an entire Olympics. Still no agreement. A week of spring training games were canceled. Then another week. Still no baseball. Grainy photos of lead negotiators Dan Halem and Bruce Meyer replaced grainy photos of pitchers and catchers. Manfred set an arbitrary deadline for an agreement to put pressure on the players. If there was no deal by March 1, he said, he’d have no choice but to cancel regular season games. Of course, as SI’s Emma Baccellieri wrote at the time, Manfred have a choice, and he would be the one making the decision to cancel games.
Great art, they say, springs from tumultuous times. Amid this labor war, as a marathon bargaining session bumped against Manfred’s deadline, baseball writer Bob Nightengale crafted a masterpiece. “It is now midnight and no one is moving as the two sides moving ever so closer,” Nightingale tweeted at 12 a.m. on March 1. I’ve heard Nightengale’s magnum opus was the inspiration for Taylor Swift’s “Midnights.”
Naturally, the deadline passed without a deal. Manfred held a press conference and canceled the first two series of the season. Then, the following Monday, Manfred backtracked and said if a deal was reached by the end of Tuesday they could make up the games he had taken off the schedule. They missed that deadline, too, so on Wednesday, Manfred banged two more series. Finally, the day after that, on March 10, the two sides came to an agreement to play a full 162-game season.
We were rewarded for all our waiting. The 99-day lockout gave way to the Year of 99, as Aaron Judge bashed his way into the record books with one of the best hitting campaigns of all time. Yet, this most thrilling year in baseball was defined by more than just the big guy’s big bet on himself.
This was the year of playoff droughts ending and Steve Cohen’s spending. There were milestones and rare feats, comebacks and winning streaks. Dusty Baker got his ring, and Alex Bregman fixed his swing. We waved hello to Julio and said adiós to Albert.
Remarkably, considering the labor strife that marked the first two months, this was also the year in which the minor leaguers formed a union, a monumental step toward combating the horrendous working and living conditions that these players faced for decades.
This was the first season with the universal DH and the last with defensive shifts. Thanks to an expanded postseason, two additional teams made the playoffs; one of them advanced to the World Series. Once again, the Angels were not one of them, even as Shohei Ohtani surpassed the greatness of his MVP-winning campaign the year before. Mike Trout cranked 40 home runs—second most in the American League—despite playing in only 119 games. The wasting of two generational talents continues in Anaheim, for one more year anyway. If you thought this year’s free agency was chaotic, just wait until next offseason, when Ohtani hits the open market as the best available hitter pitcher.
Speaking of generational talents, the Nationals decided in 2022 that Juan Soto, the Second Coming of Ted Williams, was more valuable to them playing for another team. Washington traded him to the Padres in what Tom Verducci called “the biggest trade deadline blockbuster in history.” In that same column, Verducci also wrote, “If you are a true baseball fan, which means you believe possibility is a hope and not a mathematical theorem, you should be thankful for San Diego.”
As this year in baseball comes to an end, we should be thankful for more than just San Diego. We had little to celebrate at this time last year, so let’s make up for lost time with a selection of the best SI baseball stories from 2022. —
