By Rory Carroll
(Reuters) -Major League Baseball (MLB) and its players union failed to reach a labor agreement by the league’s Tuesday deadline and as a result, MLB has cancelled the first two series of the regular season, Commissioner Rob Manfred said.
The 2022 season was scheduled to kick off with Opening Day on March 31.
“The calendar dictates that we’re not going to be able to play the first two series of the regular season and those games are officially cancelled,” Manfred told a press conference.
Service time toward free agency, playoff expansion, luxury tax and a salary floor are among the key issues in the current dispute, which led the league to lock out the players in December.
The breakdown in negotiations toward a new collective bargaining agreement came after the sides met for more than 16 hours on Monday and again on Tuesday in Jupiter, Florida in an effort to avoid the first missed games due to a labor dispute since the players’ strike of 1994-1995.
MLB had previously said it would cancel games if a deal was not met by the end of the day on Monday, but the league said enough progress was made that it decided to push the deadline back to Tuesday.
The players rejected MLB’s last offer before the deadline expired.
The cancelled games will not be made up and the players will not be paid, Manfred added.
“We’re prepared to continue negotiations,” Manfred said.
“We’ve been informed that the MLBPA is headed back to New York, meaning that no agreement is possible until at least Thursday. As such, camps could not meaningfully operate until at least March 8, leaving only 23 days before the scheduled Opening Day.”
Representatives from the Players’ Association will address the media later on Tuesday.
(Additional reporting by Amy Tennery in New York and Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Chris Reese and Toby Davis)
