Last week, I took a look at the beginning of Bud Selig’s fight for “small-market” franchises 30 years ago. “These negotiations were a fight for the Milwaukees of the world,” Selig told the Milwaukee Sentinel. “In the end, Milwaukee was the only franchise being mentioned.”

Selig and his coalition of small-market owners deposed Fay Vincent and installed Selig himself as acting commissioner just seven years later, in 1992. The next year, Selig and his group flexed their muscles and proved they were serious about forcing the big-market owners to seriously consider a revenue-sharing program.

In the early 1990s, “superstations” like Chicago’s WGN and Atlanta’s TBS were making baseball games widely available on television outside of a team’s home market for the first time. Both New York teams also had games broadcast on superstations — WPIX for the Yankees and WWOR for the Mets. In 1993, as the game’s collective bargaining agreement approached expiration the next year, small-market owners took aim at these sources of revenue for big-market teams through a little known clause in a decades-old contract.

The distribution of funds from local and cable telecasts was dictated by agreements dating back to the mid-20th century, 1956 for the National League and 1965 for the American League. Each league distributed the cash slightly differently — American League teams with superstations shared 20 percent of the revenue with the rest of the AL, and National League teams shared 25 percent of the revenue from each game with that game’s road team. The agreements contained critical clauses, according to the Sentinel: Each can be terminated when five teams in a league give notice. Without these agreements, small-market teams would have the right to block superstations from broadcasting any games in which they are involved. The result would be a substantial loss of revenue for the superstations which needed the baseball money to survive.

The Milwaukee Journal reported that San Diego, Houston, Pittsburgh, Florida, Montreal, St. Louis and Cincinnati all supported the blackout in the National League, and seven teams including the Brewers and Twins backed the blackout effort in the American League. This rift in ownership made things awkward for Selig, and the Sentinel report shows the absurdity of his attempt to act as neutral commissioner and Brewers owner at the same time.

The article read, “Interim commissioner Bud Selig, president of the Brewers, was reluctant to discuss the situation. His small-market team supports the coalition, athough as acting commissioner, he is required to appear impartial.”

Selig did say, “I wouldn’t make too much of this. I don’t think it’s an issue of leverage as much as the clubs taking a new look at decades-old agreements.” Another owner was a bit harsher, as he said, “I don’t know how far we’ll go with this, but we need to have the attention of the big-market clubs. They need to know we’re serious about a revenue-sharing agreement that will give us some significant help.”

It was unclear how much leverage the small-market owners actually had. The report suggested the previous renewal of the American League contract ran through 1994, which would mean nothing could happen until after the CBA expired regardless of the small-market coalition’s votes. Still, the point was made — there were enough small-market franchises willing to band together to make a real threat to a major source of revenue for the large-market franchises that were blocking a revenue-sharing program. Peter Gammons suggested furthermore that “a half-dozen financially distressed franchises” would make a mad dash to be the first team to relocate to the open market in St. Petersburg, Florida* and that the potential infighting between the owners could be enough to threaten baseball’s exceptionally lucrative antitrust exemption. The small-market franchises had the attention they desired.

*Jonah Keri’s The Extra 2% includes an excellent summary of the race to St. Petersburg, as the Giants and White Sox both nearly wound up moving to South Florida before the Rays were granted a franchise.

By the signing of the next collective bargaining agreement in 1996, Selig and his small-market coalition had won their revenue-sharing system and a luxury tax, the first of a number of small-market-forward measures enacted in collective bargaining agreements since. It was just 11 years after Selig’s impassioned fight for the “Milwaukees of the world,” back when he was the lone wolf treated like a crazy person by the rest of baseball’s suits. Selig didn’t even need a decade to get his troops in line and remake the baseball world in his image, as his deft threats to hit large-market owners where it really hurts them turned the tables entirely in his favor.

The Brewers fell four games short of the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East, and the Jays would go on to win consecutive World Series titles before falling into a two-decade playoff drought of their own. The Blue Jays have pushed in their chips in an effort to reach the playoffs this year, much like the Brewers did in 2008 when they acquired CC Sabathia for the stretch run. Saturday, new Toronto ace David Price made his second start as a Blue Jay, and thus far, his performance may sound familiar to Brewers fans who remember Sabathia’s remarkable 2008 run. Price has tossed 15 innings, allowed just a single run on six hits and five walks, and struck out 18 batters.

For David Cone, announcing the game for the Yankees on YES Network, this was all very familiar. The Blue Jays acquired Cone in a post-waiver deal on August 27th from the New York Mets for Jeff Kent and a player to be named later. Cone made eight appearances (seven starts) for the Blue Jays, in which the club went 5-3. Cone recorded a 2.55 ERA and struck out 47 against 29 walks in 53 innings. Hitters mustered just a .207/.318/.309 line against Cone as the Jays cruised into the playoffs.

Because this was an August deal, after the July 31st deadline, Cone had to pass through revocable waivers before the trade could be completed. The Blue Jays had stood atop the division all year long. When the deal went through, Toronto was 73-55 and only the Oakland Athletics had a better record at 76-51. As such, any other team in the American League could have claimed Cone on waivers in order to block the trade. And so one must wonder: why didn’t the Milwaukee Brewers, who wound up being Toronto’s closest competitors, claim Cone and block the deal?

Unsurprisingly, part of the answer is that Bud Selig was a cheap skinflint who cringed at the thought of paying the remainder of Cone’s contract — a bit over $1 million before he became a free agent at the end of the season. But that isn’t the whole story. The Orioles were actually in second place in the division at the time, just 2.5 games behind Toronto, and they also declined to claim Cone. Furthermore, Cone wasn’t the only affordable, quality player to pass through waivers. A whopping 12 post-waiver deals were completed in August of 1992, including five in the final two days of the month. Quality players like Jose Canseco, Kevin Bass, Bill Krueger and Jeff Reardon were also dealt that August. Cone talked a bit about what happened on Saturday’s broadcast in the bottom of the seventh inning:

My trade to the Blue Jays in ‘92 came after the trade deadline. I had gotten through waivers. There were some funny things going on in ’92 with the waiver wire. Entire rosters got through waivers that particular year so some trades could happen after the deadline. Therefore, when I got traded to the Blue Jays it was a huge lift for them but it was also deflating for the Milwaukee Brewers who were chasing us because they did not block it via waiver wire, potential trade. I talked to several of the Brewers on that team a year or so after that particular situation and trade and they were really deflated and angered by their front office for not blocking that trade. It was really deflating on one side for the Brewers who were chasing the Blue Jays back in ’92 and a big uplift on the home side in Toronto.

First, a refresher on the context of the early 1990s, a tumultuous point in baseball’s history. As the 1992 season was closing down, the conflict that resulted in the 1994 strike was taking shape. The owners were in the process of deposing Commissioner Fay Vincent, who had taken the players’ side in the ongoing collusion battle with the owners. “The single biggest reality you guys have to face up to is collusion,” Vincent told the owners in November 1990, after MLB agreed to pay $280 million to the players in damages. “You stole $280 million from the players, and the players are unified to a man around that issue, because you got caught and many of you are still involved.”

Vincent was kicked out in September, just after a number of odd deals like Cone’s were allowed by competitive clubs to transpire during the waiver trade season. Marvin Miller, players’ union head, agreed with Vincent and told reporters the behavior of both the owners and previous commissioner Peter Ueberroth in the 1980s had been “tantamount to fixing, not just games, but entire pennant races, including all post-season series.”

I’m not sure exactly what David Cone meant when he said “some funny things were going in 1992,” but for Brewers fans, I don’t think there’s a single satisfactory explanation. Either the end of the 1992 season was corrupt due to the ongoing collusion and labor battle within the game, or Bud Selig was utterly unwilling to open up his checkbook to get his squad to the playoffs. Or both! We can’t forget that possibility.

A number of fans and analysts believe the Brewers would have overtaken the Blue Jays had the Jays not acquired Cone. I’m not so sure that’s true — the Brewers were 5.5 games back at the time, Cone only pitched in eight games, and he lost the only time he faced Milwaukee. But it’s one of those classic sports hypotheticals that fans, particularly fans of teams with losing histories like the Brewers, will understandably seize. Hearing David Cone talk Saturday about both the “funny” nature of that season and the deflating effect his trade had on the 1992 Brewers only adds to what was already some deep frustration.