Miami (AFP)- Major League Baseball canceled the first games of the 2022 season on Tuesday after marathon negotiations with the players’ union over a new labor agreement ended without agreement on a deadline.
Thus, the baseball league will not start the campaign on March 31, the day on which 11 divisional matches and an interleague between the Phillies and Astros were scheduled.
“We’re not going to be able to play the first two sets of the regular season and they’re officially off,” Manfred said at a news conference after the ninth day of negotiations in Jupiter, Florida.
“Our position is that players will not be paid for games that are not played,” Manfred said of the canceled series.
Although the 2020 MLB season was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, the cancellation of Tuesday’s game marks the first time regular season games have been missed since the 1995 shutdown, when 948 games were canceled.
The Major Leagues had warned that this Tuesday was the deadline to successfully conclude the negotiations and that failure to do so could delay the start of the regular season.
Hopes of a deal had risen Monday night after talks dragged on past Major League Baseball’s deadline. However, the latest round of negotiations on Tuesday ended in disagreement.
“We work hard to avoid a bad result for our fans, bad for our players and bad for our clubs,” Manfred acknowledged.
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“Our failure to reach an agreement is not due to a lack of effort on either side,” he said. “The players have been here for nine days, they have worked hard to try to reach an agreement and I appreciate their effort.
Minimum wage increase
During his appearance, Manfred said the team’s owners had made “commitment after commitment” in an effort to prevent games from being canceled.
The owners, according to the commissioner, had proposed raising the league’s minimum salary from $130,000 to $700,000.
“One of the main goals of the players’ association was to increase the salaries of young players,” Manfred said. “We agree and share this goal.”
Manfred said the league had also offered to create a $30 million bonus fund for young players, saying two-thirds of players would have seen a raise of about 33% with his proposal.
Other issues in dispute between the parties were the distribution of revenue from the competition, the period during which players may be eligible for salary arbitration, luxury tax rates and the expansion of the playoffs, among others.
© 2022 AFP
