What we all-but knew would happen was made official early Thursday morning, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that MLB owners had imposed a lockout on the players.
Major League Baseball has officially implemented a lockout, sources tell ESPN. The ninth work stoppage in the sport’s history has begun.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 2, 2021
This is the first work stoppage of the new millennium, with the last one occurring 26 years ago. The lockout has no hard-and-fast deadline to end, but many pundits view it as unlikely to extend much beyond February, since that would begin to eat into spring training and potentially the regular season, which would hurt the pockets of both sides.