Major League Baseball (MLB) players and owners reached a five-year collective bargaining agreement Tuesday that includes extra drug testing and plans to expand the postseason. The deal, which needs to be ratified by the players and owners, will replace the current pact that expires Dec. 11 and ensures the league will have 21 straight years of labor peace since the end of the 1994-95 players' strike. “I believe that this five-year agreement will continue the remarkable popularity and surge that baseball has been on,” MLB Commissioner Bud Selig said at a joint press conference with the MLB Players Association (MLBPA). “I have said this often and I will say it to all of you today, nobody back in the ‘70s, ‘80s and early ‘90s would ever believe that we would have 21 years of labor peace.” The new deal includes blood testing for human growth hormone starting with the upcoming season, and plans to add an extra wild card playoff spot in each of the two leagues no later than 2013. Selig would like the second wild card, which would play a single game against the league's other wild card for the right to advance, instituted for the 2012 season but said a decision would be needed by March 1 for that to go into effect. The agreement was another step in an era of cooperation between MLB's owners and players following a string of bitter disputes that led to the loss of the middle third of the 1981 season, and cancellation of the entire postseason in 1994. It was announced while the National Basketball Association faces the potential loss of its 2011-12 season because of a labor dispute and shortly after the National Football League had its preseason disrupted because of a lockout. “Bud spoke of labor peace, and labor peace is good. It's better than labor war for sure,” said MLBPA Executive Director Michael Weiner. “It's a good day for collective bargaining and for baseball.” The agreement included changes regarding the drafting and signing of amateur players, putting an aggregate spending limit on teams to discourage big market clubs from trumping small market franchises. Minimum salaries for major league players will increase 16 percent to $480,000 in 2012 from $414,000 in 2011 and will reach $500,000 in 2014. The Houston Astros will move to the American League West in 2013, creating two 15-team leagues, and Interleague games will be played throughout the entire 162-game schedule rather than in specific interleague segments as before. Braun wins NL award Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun was named the winner of the Most Valuable Player Award for the National League Tuesday. Braun, who hit the home run that clinched the National League Central title for Milwaukee, had a .332 batting average with 33 home runs, 111 runs batted in and 33 steals during the 2011 Major League Baseball season.
