What does "We picked a bad year to have a good year." mean? HELP ME OUT!
On August 12, 1994, major league baseball players went on strike, bringing baseball to a halt for the rest of the season. The strike, which lasted 235 days, ended in April of the next year when a federal judge issued an injunction against the club owners. Just before the strike, baseball was enjoying one of the most exciting seasons in many years. The lowly Montreal Expos were leading their league by six games, Tony Gwynn was enjoying a .400 batting average, and a number of ballplayers were having banner years. Just before the strike, the famed hitter Ken Griffey, Jr., was asked what he thought about the upcoming strike, especially since he and so many other ballplayers were doing so well. He replied: We picked a bad year to have a good year.

What does "We picked a bad year to have a good year." mean? HELP ME OUT!

Question

What does "We picked a bad year to have a good year." mean? HELP ME OUT!
On August 12, 1994, major league baseball players went on strike, bringing baseball to a halt for the rest of the season. The strike, which lasted 235 days, ended in April of the next year when a federal judge issued an injunction against the club owners. Just before the strike, baseball was enjoying one of the most exciting seasons in many years. The lowly Montreal Expos were leading their league by six games, Tony Gwynn was enjoying a .400 batting average, and a number of ballplayers were having banner years. Just before the strike, the famed hitter Ken Griffey, Jr., was asked what he thought about the upcoming strike, especially since he and so many other ballplayers were doing so well. He replied: We picked a bad year to have a good year.

What does "We picked a bad year to have a good year." mean? HELP ME OUT!

Answer

The way I see it they were playing really well so in that sense they had a good year. But the strike made it a bad year for baseball in general. Now of course they didn't literally pick a good year, but being in great form and having a good year was overshadowed by the strike and a bad year for baseball. The strike meant to have to pause the season. This doesn't help for your own play, because you stop your winning streak and on the other hand he probably feared that this strike would be more of news than their good games. So throughout history everyone would remember the strike, but not how good they were.

Hope this helps

Answer

"We picked a bad year to have a good year".

Literally it means the players picked a bad year to begin having some good playing statistics because the shortened season gave these baseball statistics less meaning.

But as well, it is a play on words. These words or words very similar are often used in other contexts to convey a similar sense of doing well but all for no good in the end. "It was a bad time to have a good time". There are other variations.

So Griffley's words have a  little more impact because the reader is taking on board both the literal meaning AND the association with wasted good effort in other contexts that these words invoke.

Answer

The way I see it they were playing really well so in that sense they had a good year. But the strike made it a bad year for baseball in general. Now of course they didn't literally pick a good year, but being in great form and having a good year was overshadowed by the strike and a bad year for baseball. The strike meant to have to pause the season. This doesn't help for your own play, because you stop your winning streak and on the other hand he probably feared that this strike would be more of news than their good games. So throughout history everyone would remember the strike, but not how good they were.

Hope this helps