Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred spoke to reporters on Thursday morning, just hours after the team owners voted unanimously to lock out the players and trigger the league’s first work stoppage since 1994-95. Though the lockout coincided with the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it should be noted that negotiations could have continued without shutting down the league.
“It’s not a good thing for the sport. It’s not something that we undertake lightly,” Manfred said about the lockout. “We understand it’s bad for our business. We took it out of a desire to drive the process forward to an agreement now.”
Manfred alleged the league didn’t observe a sense of urgency from the MLB Players Association to make a deal. Locking out the players, Manfred claimed, was the owners’ way to apply “pressure” on the union and make progress in…
