The judge who 'saved baseball' is a Supreme Court nominee

An interesting sidelight to the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the United States Supreme Court is her ties to Major League Baseball. President Barack Obama said Tuesday that "some say Judge Sotomayor saved baseball."

She just might have, as we know it. Without her decision on March 31, 1995, the game might look a lot different today.

The Bronx-born justice ruled in favor of the players' union, which started the process toward the end of the standoff, which began in August 1994. After the end of that season was canceled, the owners were attempting to start the 1995 season with replacement players. The National Labor Relations Board brought the matter to a U.S. District Appeals Court in New York, and Sotomayor's decision effectively stopped that travesty from ever starting.

With that threat gone, it forced the owners back to the bargaining table, and baseball played a 144-game regular season in 1995, with the real players.

“Her ruling did not produce an agreement, but it gave the parties time to get on with normal business and get back to the bargaining table and produce an agreement,” Players Association director Donald Fehr told the New York Times. “If it hadn’t ended when she ended it, it would have gone on for some time and it would have gotten uglier and uglier.”

There hasn't been a work stoppage since.