Major League Baseball entered its first work stoppage in 9,742 days when the owners elected to lock out the players following the expiration of the sport’s collective bargaining agreement at 11:59 p.m. Wednesday.
The lockout institutes a freeze of Major League transactions, so there will be no signings or trades.
Teams are not allowed to contact players on the 40-man roster – stories and pictures of active players were already wiped from MLB.com because there is no licensing deal – and players are not permitted to organize for team activities.
The Major League portion of the annual Winter Meetings, which were scheduled to begin next week, was canceled.