It could qualify as restorative justice

There are those who say Cal Ripken Jr. and his streak of consecutive games played saved baseball after the World Series-obliterating strike of 1994. If so, a New York judge named Sonia Sotomayor had an assist.

In the spring of 1995, major league players were still on strike and baseball’s owners conducted spring training with replacement players, mostly longshot minor leaguers with little chance of reaching the majors any other way.

Two days before the season opener, Sotomayor issued a temporary injunction, ruling that the owners had engaged in unfair labor practice, and put the expired collective bargaining agreement back into place.

The 1995 regular season started late, but it started with regular major leaguers. At the same time, Ripken’s streak was saved; no games with replacement players were played to interrupt his record run. Late in the regular season, Ripken broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played, a feat credited with bringing back many fans previously disenchanted by the strike.

Without the injunction, that would not have been possible.

“Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball,” President Obama said Tuesday as he nominated Sotomayor for the Supreme Court.

Obama noted that Sotomayor grew up in housing projects near Yankee Stadium and grew up rooting for the Yankees.

“I hope this will not disqualify her in the eyes of the New Englanders in the Senate,” Obama said.

Trivia time

Who played third base alongside the fabled Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance double-play combination?

A brief debut, thankfully

Jose Canseco’s latest publicity grab lasted less than 80 seconds and had no reverberations outside of a mixed martial arts ring.

Inside that ring, Canseco was pounded into submission by a 7-foot-2, 330-pound opponent named Hong Man Choi, a South Korean super-heavyweight, only 1 minute 17 seconds into the first round Monday at Yokohama Arena.

Canseco, who injured his right knee running away from Choi, fell to the mat and absorbed a quick assault of punches before the fight was stopped.

“I hurt my knee back home real bad, but I didn’t want to disappoint the fans,” Canseco said. “I knew that at some point during the fight my knee was going to give out and once I was down I knew I wasn’t going to get up. He’s just too heavy to move.”

As for his MMA future, Canseco said, “I have no idea if I’ll do this again. I’ve gotta get my knee better before I commit to anything like this.”

Home run aid

From Mike Lupica of the New York Daily News, on the new Yankee Stadium: “Ballplayers looking to hit home runs in bunches apparently don’t need to use steroids anymore. They just have to pay a visit to the new Yankee Stadium, which suddenly looks like the performance-enhancing capital of the world.”

Trivia answer

Harry Steinfeldt.

(Question and answer provided by reader Citafish LaShier of Glendale.)

And finally

From Dan Daly of the Washington Times: “Did you see Shaquille O’Neal is taking a crash course in broadcasting at Syracuse? After basketball, he says, ‘I’d love to have my own radio show, my own TV show.’ Heck, at 7-foot-1, he could be his own transmission tower.”

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mike.penner@latimes.com