MLB owners push for salary cap in CBA negotiations, sparking lockout concerns

It didn't take very long for the people who sell baseball to us to sour the vibe of a season that is barely a third of the way along.

What promises to be an excruciating negotiation (and occasionally a refusal to negotiate at all) over Major League Baseball's next collective bargaining agreement opened with the MLB Players Association making an initial proposal, and owners responding with a gobbledygook-intensive counter built around a salary cap.

It was a sufficiently inauspicious beginning that five entire months of baseball will be played this year in the shadow of a likely lockout.