Following nearly a quarter century of labor wars, baseball players and owners will have 16 years of peace.
They set aside their long history of bitter negotiations to reach a tentative agreement on a five-year contract, the first time the sides have achieved labor peace before their current deal expires.
The agreement was struck during bargaining in New York on Friday night and Saturday, and is subject to the sides putting the deal in writing, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told The Associated Press on Sunday. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the agreement had not been finalized.
The current deal, set to expire Dec. 19, was agreed to on Aug. 30, 2002, just hours before players were set to strike. That contract was the first since 1970 achieved without a work stoppage, and this marks the first time the sides reached agreement before the expiration of the previous contract.
“Baseball is at an all-time high point right now,” Detroit left fielder Craig Monroe said before Game 2 of the World Series. “You’ve got low-market teams doing well and different teams winning every year. Getting this done couldn’t have come at a better time.”
Lawyers were working on drafting language for the new deal Sunday, and hoped to put the finishing touches on it Monday or Tuesday. Once that happened, commissioner Bud Selig would announce it in St. Louis at the World Series.
I’ll wait to see more analysis of this before I judge the deal, but it looks at first blush to be nothing terribly different from what’s there now. As someone who’s been blogging long enough to recall the previous agreement, I’m just happy everyone else is happy, even if I still think that last deal was based on faulty premises. I can’t argue the point that the game is fundamentally healthy now, and much as it kills me to say it, I’ve got to give Bud Selig some credit for getting this done. He’s still got a lot to answer for, but at least we’ve got five more years without having to worry about the collective bargaining agreement. Kudos to all for a job well done.