“In terms of any delay in the process, that’s a mutual responsibility of the bargaining parties. Phones work two ways.”
This was MLB commissioner Rob Manfred discussing the pace of labor negotiations during his press conference on Thursday. It was a perfect representation of the spirit of the session: A line that was technically true—or, at least, not explicitly untrue—while being wildly, eye-roll-inducingly disingenuous.
Who’s to blame for the MLB lockout? Certainly not this smiling guy, says this smiling guy.
When the league began the lockout in December, after the expiration of the old collective bargaining agreement, it said the move was necessary to speed up the process of negotiating a new one.