MLB cancels first 2 regular-season series after MLBPA rejects league’s final proposal

Major League Baseball has canceled Opening Day, with commissioner Rob Manfred revealing Tuesday the sport will scrap regular-season games over a labor dispute for the first time in 27 years after acrimonious lockout talks collapsed in the hours before management’s deadline.

Manfred stated he is canceling the first two series of the season that was set to start March 31, dropping the schedule from 162 games to likely 156, at most. Manfred said the league and union have not made plans for future negotiations and that players won’t be paid for missed games.

“My deepest hope is we get an agreement quickly,” Manfred said. “I’m really disappointed we didn’t make an agreement.”

After the sides made progress during 13 negotiating sessions over 16½ hours on Monday, the league sent the players’ association a “best and final offer” on Tuesday, on the ninth consecutive day of negotiations.

Players rejected that offer, setting the stage for MLB to follow through on its threat to nix Opening Day.

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Union chief Tony Clark, speaking at a news conference later Tuesday, said the players “remain committed to the bargaining process and getting back on the field as soon as possible.”

At 5:10 p.m. ET Tuesday, Manfred issued a statement that many fans had been dreading: Nothing to look forward to on Opening Day, normally a spring standard of renewal for fans throughout the nation and some in Canada too.

The ninth work stoppage in baseball history will be the fifth that causes regular-season games to be canceled, leaving Fenway Park and Dodger Stadium as quiet in the next month as Joker Marchant Stadium and Camelback Ranch have been during the third consecutive disrupted spring training.

“The concerns of our fans are at the very top of our consideration list,” Manfred said.

In a statement, the union said it is “not surprised” by the outcome.

“Rob Manfred and MLB’s owners have cancelled the start of the season. Players and fans around the world who love baseball are disgusted, but sadly not surprised,” MLBPA said in a statement.

The lockout, in its 90th day, will plunge a sport staggered by the coronavirus pandemic and afflicted by numerous on-field issues into a self-inflicted hiatus over the inability of players and owners to divide a $10 billion industry. By losing regular-season games, scrutiny will fall even more intensely on Manfred, the commissioner since January 2015, and Clark, the former All-Star first baseman who became union leader when Michael Weiner died in November 2013.

“Manfred gotta go,” tweeted Chicago Cubs pitcher Marcus Stroman.

The bulk of fan ire on social media was aimed at Manfred, who was spotted practicing his golf swing between bargaining sessions by an Associated Press photographer on Tuesday. Others were upset that Manfred was laughing and jovial with reporters at his news conference announcing the cancellation.

Players and owners entered deadline day far apart on many key issues and unresolved on others. The most contentious proposals involve luxury tax thresholds and rates, the size of a new bonus pool for pre-arbitration players, minimum salaries, salary arbitration eligibility and the union’s desire to change the club revenue-sharing formula.

While the differences had narrowed in recent days, the sides remained apart, with how far apart depending on the point of view.

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