The Latest Breaking News from Major League Baseball

When Rob Manfred wrote his letter to “our Fans” on Dec. 2, he explained Major League Baseball’s decision to lock out the players as a tactic to “jumpstart the negotiations and get us to an agreement that will allow the season to start on time.” Then, the league went 43…

NEW YORK — Twenty-one hours after Major League Baseball requested federal mediation, rather than issuing its planned counteroffer, the Major League Baseball Players Association rejected the league’s request.

The players’ union rejected Major League Baseball’s request for a federal mediator to enter stalled labor negotiations.

As Major League Baseball’s lockout enters its third month, and with minimal progress in negotiations with the MLB Players Association, the league is requesting a federal mediator to assist in reaching an agreement, multiple sources with knowledge of the situation said Thursday, confirming an ESPN report.

The good news is that Major League Baseball and the MLB Players’ Association met twice this week on consecutive days. And that’s pretty much all the good news from the bargaining table we can cover at this time. There were a handful of interesting developments, some of which were more…

PITTSBURGH — Gene Clines spent 10 years in Major League Baseball as a player, then more than two decades on various coaching staffs during a storied career that included nine different organizations. Yet there's little doubt concerning the date and location of Clines' favorite memories.

Only a couple hours after Major League Baseball killed the Tampa Bay Rays’ kooky, controversial plan to split their home schedule with the city of Montreal, my phone rang last week.

LOS ANGELES — Neither his name nor his greatest accomplishment are hidden. On the official website of Major League Baseball, he is immortalized as owner of the sport’s most cherished record, atop the all-time home run list: Barry Bonds, 762.

In today’s Major League Baseball labor negotiation news: there is no deal, but there is another meeting.

While the NFL dominated the sports landscape the past two weekends, Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association continued to dawdle and damage their own popularity.

BALTIMORE — Of the changes that have happened throughout the Orioles organization over the past handful of years, perhaps none is as certain to be long-lasting as the team’s decision to alter the left-field dimensions at Camden Yards. But for several reasons — “everything from the ball that Major League…