MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred cancelled the season’s first two series this week, after the league and the Players Association couldn’t come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) before Tuesday’s league-imposed deadline.
The union has always stated they are more than open to reschedule any lost games and play doubleheaders, but the league wants to put some pressure on them and won’t agree to that.
With that being the scenario at the moment, more games could be cancelled: as a reminder, players don’t collect checks if they don’t play.
Nobody knows when the season will start, and right now, playing games in April seems like a pipe dream.
MLB analyst Ryan Spaeder has his target date very much clear: May 15.
May 15th… https://t.co/zrmpPPUsIk
— Ryan M. Spaeder (@theaceofspaeder) March 4, 2022
It’s actually a reasonable, plausible date for the regular season to start: it could be sooner, it could be later, but it’s a very good number to set the over/under.
MLB Needs To Negotiate In Good Faith
The problem is that the league doesn’t want to negotiate in good faith and, instead, are trying to break the players’ spirits (and wallets) and force some internal disagreements in the union that eventually lead to them signing a deal.
According to USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, MLB and MLBPA representatives met informally on Thursday in New York, and talked for an hour and a half.
There weren’t official proposals, though, and right now, there are no plans to have new conversations.
That could change in a hurry.
To sum up, baseball fans will apparently be without their favorite sport on TV and live for a while longer.
It’s an unfortunate turn of events, for everybody involved.
Well, almost everybody.
NEXT: MLB Writer Points Out How The League Is Falling Behind Fast