NEW YORK – Major League Baseball’s team owners and players ended their most bitter money fight in a quarter-century on Thursday, when the players’ association accepted management’s offer to salvage a 162-game season that will start April 7.
The work stoppage officially ended at 7 p.m. sharp, closing an acrimonious 99-day lockout that delayed spring training and threatened to cancel regular-season games for the first time since 1995.
Training camps in Arizona and Florida will open Friday, with players mandated to report by Sunday. Opening day was pushed back just more than a week from its original date of March 31, but all that might be forgotten when the New York Yankees’ Aaron Judge digs in against the rival Boston Red Sox, or Los Angeles Angeles pitcher and slugger Shohei Ohtani eschews the new universal designated hitter and continues his run as a rare two-way threat.
“I do want to start by apologizing to our fans,” commissioner Rob Manfred said, his voice quavering at times, later adding: “I hope that the players will see the effort we made to address their concerns in this agreement as an olive branch in terms of building a better relationship.”
A frenzy of free agency action was expected. A freeze on roster transactions was dissolved Thursday night, spurring a wave of speculation about new homes for more than 130 free agents who had been kept in lockout limbo.