1976 Major League Baseball lockout

Following the expiration of the league's Basic Agreement between the owners and the players, there were rumors of a potential lockout due to the inability of the two sides to negotiate a new deal in a timely manner.

The Major League Baseball Players Association asked a caucus of team owners if a lockout would happen, but the group told union director Marvin Miller that it "wasn't their decision to make."

On January 15, 1976, Miller met with the Owners-Players Relations Committee for three hours to discuss issues in an attempt to work towards a deal before a potential lockout.

The court ultimately ruled against Flood in 1972, but comments made by the justices on the case were used to later nullify the reserve clause in the December 1975 Seitz decision, effectively creating free agency in baseball.

Newsday writer William Nack wrote in a February edition that "the owners have since carried on ad nauseam, to put it with charity, and contrived to emerge ironically as graceless, irrational fugitives running naked through the streets of perhaps the most graceful, rational of American games.

[7] MLB and the MLBPA met for five hours on March 2 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida to discuss the reserve clause amongst other issues, but little progress was reportedly made.

The owners made a revised proposal that would allow players to seek free agency after six years of service time, but Marvin Miller said that MLB was not willing to hear out the MLBPA's counter-proposal.

[10] More owners began to ease their lockout stance; Jim Kaat and Steve Carlton were among 22 Phillies players at spring training camp by March 4.

He announced that the MLBPA was setting April 25 as a deadline for negotiations to conclude, threatening that they would argue breach of contract otherwise and seek to grant players free agency.

[13] Commissioner of Baseball Bowie Kuhn, who largely separated himself from the dispute between MLB owners and the MLBPA, began to receive calls to alleviate the problem before regular-season games were cancelled.

Bench noted that many players were training on high school and collegiate fields in Florida and paying their own housing fees because they did not have access to team facilities.

At a meeting, Marvin Miller made a new proposal that would institute a one-year test trial of the "one-one rule" so that the two camps could witness its cost-effectiveness and make a later decision.

AL President Lee MacPhail said that MLB "bit the bullet" on the rule and added that spring training camps would not be opened until the deal was accepted.