Major League Baseball canceled the first week of spring training games through March 4 in the first public acknowledgement of the disruption caused by the lockout.
The announcement Friday came with the work stoppage in its 79th day, and a day after economic talks between the management and the Major League Baseball Players Association lasted just 15 minutes.
Negotiators are set to resume bargaining on core economics on Monday, and MLB said members of the owners’ negotiating committee will attend the session, just the seventh on the central issues of the dispute since the lockout began Dec. 2.
Spring training was to have started this week, and the exhibition schedule had been set to begin on Feb. 26. There were 16 games set for that day, including the World Series champion Atlanta Braves playing Boston in Florida and the renamed Cleveland Guardians taking on Cincinnati in Arizona.
