Major League Baseball, also known as MLB, is the oldest professional sports league in the world. There are a total of 30 teams that play and are a part of Major League Baseball. Teams that play with the MLB are either a part of the American League or National League, with 29 of them from the United States and one team in Canada. 

December 2, 2021, the MLB officially announced their lockout. This lockout came into play because of the league’s failed labor agreement with players and the expiration of the previous MLB bargaining agreement. The goal of this lockout is to form a new labor agreement between the players and league. No agreement has been able to be reached, causing this prolonged lockout. 

With little agreement in sight, MLB’s commissioner, Rob Manfred canceled a week of regular season games. Additionally, MLB announced that they also will be postponing the start of Spring Training games, until at least March 5, 2022. If this lockout continues, lurking into mid-March, there is risk that the first regular season games will be lost to a labor dispute, this being the first time since 1995. 

March 9, 2022 MLB canceled a second week of regular season games, further postponing Opening Day up until April 14, 2022.

“Attempts were made at generating a new collective- bargaining agreement,” said ESPN at a meeting with the MLB players association. 

“After our second late-night bargaining session…we remain without a deal,” said Rob Manfred.

“Our top priority remains the finalization of a fair contract for all Players,” said the Players Association.

The Players Association is the union that represents the players on all of baseball’s forty men rosters, on all thirty teams in Major League Baseball. Knowing this makes it more clear as to why this association is pushing for a better agreement between the league and its players.

As of March 10, 2022 the Major League Baseball lockout is over. An announcement was made that MLB and the Major League Players Association finally, after three months, ended the stalemate, and agreed on a new collective agreement. Opening thus, has been rescheduled on, put back onto the initial date of April 7, 2022. Spring training camps have also been put back on schedule and will begin March 11, with Spring training games beginning March 27, 2022.