The players' union became bolder under the leadership of former
United Steelworkers chief economist and negotiator
Marvin Miller, who was elected executive director in 1966.
[51] On the playing field, major league pitchers were becoming increasingly dominant again. After the 1968 season, in an effort to restore balance, the
strike zone was reduced and the height of the
pitcher's mound was lowered. The following year, both the National and American leagues added two more expansion teams, the leagues were reorganized into two divisions each, and a post-season playoff system leading to the World Series was instituted. Also in 1969,
Curt Flood of the St. Louis Cardinals made the first serious legal challenge to the reserve clause. The major leagues'
first general players' strike took place in 1972.
[52] In another effort to add more offense to the game, the American League adopted the
designated hitter rule the following year.
[53] In 1975, the union's power—and players' salaries—began to increase greatly when the reserve clause was
effectively struck down, leading to the
free agency system.
[54] In 1977, two more expansion teams joined the American League. Significant work stoppages occurred again in
1981 and
1994, the latter forcing the cancellation of the World Series for the first time in ninety years.
[55] Attendance had been growing steadily since the mid-1970s and in 1994, before the stoppage, the majors were setting their all-time record for per-game attendance.
[46][56]
The addition of two more expansion teams after the 1993 season had facilitated another restructuring of the major leagues, this time into three divisions each. Offensive production—the number of home runs in particular—had surged that year, and again in the abbreviated 1994 season.
[57] After play resumed in 1995, this trend continued and non-division-winning
wild card teams became a permanent fixture of the post-season. Regular-season
interleague play was introduced in 1997 and the second-highest attendance mark for a full season was set.
[58] The next year,
Mark McGwire and
Sammy Sosa both surpassed Maris's decades-old single season home run record and two more expansion franchises were added. In 2000, the National and American leagues were dissolved as legal entities. While their identities were maintained for scheduling purposes (and the designated hitter distinction), the regulations and other functions—such as player discipline and umpire supervision—they had administered separately were consolidated under the rubric of
Major League Baseball (MLB).
[59]
In 2001,
Barry Bonds established the current record of 73 home runs in a single season. There had long been suspicions that the dramatic increase in power hitting was fueled in large part by
the abuse of illegal steroids (as well as by the dilution of pitching talent due to expansion), but the issue only began attracting significant media attention in 2002 and there was no penalty for the use of performance-enhancing drugs before 2004.
[60] In 2007, Bonds became MLB's all-time home run leader, surpassing
Hank Aaron, as total major league and minor league attendance both reached all-time highs.
[61][62] Even though McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds—as well as many other players, including storied pitcher
Roger Clemens—have been implicated in the
steroid abuse scandal, their feats and those of other sluggers had become the major leagues' defining attraction.
[63] In contrast to the professional game's resurgence in popularity after the 1994 interruption, Little League enrollment was in decline: after peaking in 1996, it dropped 1 percent a year over the following decade.
[64] With more rigorous testing and penalties for performance-enhancing drug use a possible factor, the balance between bat and ball swung markedly in 2010, which became known as the "Year of the Pitcher".
[65] Runs per game fell to their lowest level in 18 years, and the strikeout rate was higher than it had been in half a century.
[6
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