Braves, MLB won't start season on time as lockout drags on
Atlanta Braves fans eager to see the team defend its first championship in a quarter-century will have to wait a bit longer.
Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred announced Tuesday that the first two series of the upcoming season, including baseball’s Opening Day, have been scrapped because of the ongoing lockout.
Players and owners held lengthy talks Monday, and MLB extended its self-imposed deadline until Tuesday afternoon. But negotiations broke down, and Manfred announced the first regular-season games lost to a labor stoppage since the beginning of the 1995 season. A player’s strike led to the cancellation of the 1994 World Series and delayed the start of the ’95 campaign.
The Braves had been set to open the season in Miami on March 31, then travel to New York for a series with the Mets before returning home for their home opener on April 7. Atlanta’s first home game is still scheduled to be played on time, but additional delays would put that in peril, too.
“I want to assure our fans that our failure to reach an agreement was not due to a lack of effort on the part of either party,” Manfred wrote in a letter to fans. “The players came here for nine days, worked hard and tried to make a deal. I appreciate their effort.”
The two sides remain at odds over more pay for younger players and how to address competitive balance issues. A new collective bargaining agreement would also address the number of teams that make the playoffs each year and whether to institute the designated hitter in the National League.
In a statement, the Major League Baseball Players Association said it was “disgusted, but sadly not surprised” over the cancellation of games.
The players’ union statement called the lockout a “culmination of a decades-long attempt by owners to break our player fraternity” and said the union is “united and committed to negotiating a fair deal that will improve the sport.”
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