MLB Postpones Season Start, Cancels Games


JUPITER, Fla. — Commissioner Rob Manfred announced on Tuesday that the 2022 Major League Baseball season will not start on time on March 31.

After nearly a year of negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement in Florida, including one week of daily talks between the league and the players’ association, effective February 21, the parties were unable to reach a new agreement until the MLB self-determined deadline of 5. Tuesday afternoon to start the 162-game season as scheduled.

Manfred said the first two series of the season will be cancelled.

“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to do this press conference I’m going to cancel some regular season games,” Manfred said.

These are the first games to be canceled or postponed due to business interruption since the 1994-95 player strike that resulted in the loss of more than 900 games, including the 1994 World Series. This remains the longest job cut in baseball history, and this is what follows.

With little progress made last week, the league’s negotiating team told the union that if there was no deal by Monday, the MLB would begin canceling games, not paying players for missed matches, and not rescheduling. The MLB decided that before the regular season opener, at least four weeks of spring training — two weeks shorter than usual — was needed to avoid a spike in player injuries.

While the union didn’t accept the MLB deadline, they understood the gravity of the situation and were willing to explore any avenues to get a deal in which a full season could be played. So the two sides met on Monday and discussed again. With some modest progress being made in the 16 ½ hour talks, MLB extended the deadline until the following evening.

However, the talks on Tuesday yielded no results. In fact, they became more contentious, and the alliance turned down MLB’s supposed best and last offer in the last hour after meeting with the players.

2 brought the sport to a standstill on December 2 when MLB locked down players, the day after the previous five-year employment contract expired. Manfred later said he did this as a defensive move to protect the 2022 season.

When negotiations stretched into early February, Manfred, who was employed by the owners but was appointed as a representative of the game, said that losing regular season games was “disaster“for the industry.



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