With No Deadline Deal, M.L.B.’s Lockout Begins
The New York Times
Players and owners continued to negotiate until the final day, but with the sides still far apart, baseball has its first work stoppage since the 1994-95 strike.
IRVING, Texas — For the first time in nearly three decades, Major League Baseball is in a work stoppage.
After the owners of M.L.B.’s 30 clubs and the players failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement before the expiration of the previous five-year pact at 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, the league enacted a lockout. It was the latest chapter in fraught labor relations between the sides in recent years.
While a lockout was not a requirement, the move is the owners’ cudgel and it had previously been used by owners in the four major men’s North American professional sports leagues in similar instances. After a flurry of free agency activity leading up to Wednesday, a lockout brings the sport to a standstill. Teams are not allowed to talk to players, make major league signings or swing trades.
