DE Assistant Sports Editor

Baseball is done, the experts said.

This strike was supposed to have damaged the sport beyond repair again but just like Jason in the Friday the 13th movies, baseball just keeps coming back.

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The 1995 season has provided some memorable and not so memorable moments which defined the roller-coaster year Major League Baseball had. From the rise of the Cleveland Indians to the fall of the Toronto Blue Jays, this year in baseball has been anything but boring.

The list starts with the Cleveland Indians. This is a ball club that won 100 games in a strike-shortened 144-game schedule. With a lineup full of players capable of depositing the ball into the seats, it’s pretty scary to think what they could have done given a full 162-game slate.

Another surprise this year was the emergence of the Seattle Mariners. Many people see the M’s as a fluke, but that isn’t necessarily so. The Mariners, with Ken Griffey, Jr., Jay Buhner and Randy Johnson, were one player short of winning the American League Championship Series. Unfortunately that player is a pitcher which is not to say that Johnson didn’t play his tail off to make up for the deficiency at that position.

The San Diego Padres’ Tony Gwynn had another great season, winning his fifth-straight National League batting title, and once again, did it in complete obscurity … he really needs to get out of San Diego.

The biggest individual moment of the season (besides the fact there was actually an Opening Day this year) belongs to Cal Ripken, Jr.

In August, Ripken surpassed Lou Gehrig’s consecutive games streak of 2,130, marking the fall of one more of the often thought untouchable records in the history of America’s Pastime.

Other than the demise of the Toronto Blue Jays, who went from World Series Champions in 1993 to nesting in the American League East’s basement, the New York Yankees take the cake for offensive behavior. Apparently, the Yankees are the Betty Ford Clinic of Major League Baseball.

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First, the Yanks sign Steve Howe, who has been suspended from the game of baseball on numerous occasion for breaking the league’s substance-abuse policy, before the strike even ended. The worst part was that George Steinbrenner disguised the move by allowing Howe to sell Yankee tickets during the strike.

Then, Steinbrenner goes out and gets Darryl Strawberry tax cheat and member of the on suspension for violating the league’s substance abuse policy club during the middle of the season.

Just recently, the Yankees reached out and gave Dwight Gooden another chance, too. Gooden was also on suspension for substance-abuse related problems.

What is Steinbrenner trying to do … upgrade his image?

Who was the braintrust behind the Baseball Network’s decision to regionalize the coverage of the playoffs?

I can just see it. Some network guy sitting in his office when the idea springs into his head.

Eureka, he says. Let’s make everyone watch the same teams they’ve been watching all year, and then start the other games at the exact same time!

While half the country watched in complete boredom as the Braves walked over the Reds in the National League Championship Series, the ALCS was the most exciting playoff series in years.

Apparently, the person who gave birth to the regional coverage idea has been fired or something, because Major League Baseball has decided to scrap that format and try something new next season.

Maybe baseball is trying to win back its fans, after all.