Then, something happened. It was amazing. It turned everything around but most importantly it forced the owners to make serious concessions, first, on the rookie wage scale, and then later on other issues. Again, amazing.

The question is: what was that thing? What caused the owners to make such grand concessions? I'm told the owners didn't concede out of the goodness of their hearts. I'm told the players made a threat that scared the hell out of the owners (and I don't think it was court related). But no one will tell me what the threat was........

I don't think the owners made the concession as part of the normal negotiating process. They made it because the players said or did something that made them extremely nervous.

-Mike Freeman, cbssports.com