JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — Another day ran off the clock in talks to salvage opening day when locked-out baseball players proposed what they considered a small move forward in drawn-out labor negotiations and management termed it a third straight step backward.
Management again proposed a federal mediator enter the negotiations, but the union immediately turned down that idea, leaving Major League Baseball on track to lose regular-season games to a labor dispute for the first time since 1995.
Less than a week remains until the sides reach what management says is a Monday deadline for a deal that would allow the season to start as scheduled on March 31.
Still, the sides agreed to meet for a third day in a row Wednesday, the 84th day of the second-longest work stoppage in baseball history.
Elsewhere in baseball news:
— One-time Texas Rangers slugger Josh Hamilton has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a case arising from an altercation with his teenage daughter. Hamilton pleaded guilty Tuesday to unlawful restraint under a plea deal that dismisses a 2020 felony indictment for injury to a child. The judge fined Hamilton $500 and ordered him to pay court costs, do community service and attend parenting and anger management classes. His 14-year-old daughter told her mother, Hamilton’s ex-wife, that her father struck her after he became enraged by a comment from her.
