MLB owners want some sort of salary cap.

The Commissioner of Major League Baseball’s legal team has not yet engaged in serious collective bargaining negotiations with the Major League Baseball Players Association as the present CBA ending in December 2026. The rest of the 2025 season and the 2026 season will not be impacted by labor strife but there is something unusual going on with the owners side. Owners are speaking out about the need for some mechanism to control players’ salaries. In past negotiations the owners generally said nothing leaving it up to the commissioner’s legal team to do the bargaining and make statements. The owner of the Houston Astros franchise, Jim Crane, is the latest owner to discuss the upcoming CBA talks and while he is not pushing for a salary cap, Crane thinks something needs to be done. Crane said he does not  “think a salary cap happens” even though there is “glaring need for MLB to change its economic structure to fit more in line with that of the NFL, NHL or NBA.”

Crane’s comments follow those of the owner of the Colorado Rockies’ franchise Dick Monfort who joined the chorus led by Baltimore Orioles owner David Rubenstein and New York Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner that want something done. And they want something done by the beginning of the 2027 season. There seems to be a concentrated effort from Major League Baseball’s ownership side that the business must rein in spending by the Los Angeles Dodgers ownership. There seems to be three camps here in what has become the first volleys fired in negotiations between the owners and players. The owners are annoyed at the Dodgers ownership, so there is not a united ownership message, it’s the Dodgers owners against the other 29 owners and then the owners versus the players. MLB owners may be laying the ground for a lockout.

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TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Luis Rengifo hit a tiebreaking single in the ninth inning and the Los Angeles Angels rallied to beat Tampa Bay 4-3 Tuesday night, extending the Rays’ losing streak to five in the opener of a 13-game homestand.

Kenley Jansen allowed singles to Jake Mangum and Taylor Walls starting the ninth but escaped a second-and-third, no-outs jam for his third save. Yandy Díaz grounded to Rengifo, who threw out Mangum at the plate from third, and Jansen struck out Brandon Lowe and José Caballero to seal the Angels’ third straight win.

Tampa Bay drew 10,046 in its seventh sellout at Steinbrenner Field but dropped to 4-3 at its temporary home, the Yankees spring training ballpark.

This series originally was scheduled for Anaheim but Major League Baseball rearranged the schedule to have the Rays play 19 of their first 22 games at home in an attempt to lessen the impact of summer storms at the open-air ballpark. The Rays’ usual home, Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, has a dome that was damaged by Hurricane Milton last October.

The Rays went 2 for 13 with runners in scoring position and stranded nine runners, including seven in the last three innings. Pete Fairbanks (1-1) was the loser.

Tampa Bay’s Kameron Misner was hit on the helmet by a 98.8 mph pitch from Brock Burke (2-0) in the eighth but stayed in the game.

Anaheim’s Kyren Paris hit his third homer this seasons, a two-run drive off Shane Baz, with a video review upholding there was no fan interference.

Junior Caminero’s homer off Ben Joyce started a three-run seventh that overcame a 2-0 deficit. Christopher Morel hit a tying double and scored on Misner’s triple.

Travis d’Arnaud hit a tying RBI grounder in the eighth.

Key moment

Morel was ejected by plate umpire Rob Drake after a called strike in the eighth. He had words with the umpire and slammed his bat.

Key stat

Jansen went 0 for 4, grounding into a double play, and is 1 for 24 in his first season with Tampa Bay.

Up next

Angels LHP Yusei Kikuchi (0-1, 4.50 ERA) and Rays RHP starter Ryan Pepiot (0-1) Wednesday.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

SAN ANTONIO (AP) — The final buzzer in San Antonio closed a drama that ended with confetti and Gator chomps — a thrill-a-minute NCAA title for the Florida Gators that reminded us all of what’s so good about the games these college athletes play.

In another court — a few hours earlier and 1,700 miles away — lawyers, a few athletes and a judge debated issues that will impact the future of games like these and what comes next for a multibillion-dollar college-sports industry that is struggling with change.

Those two scenes Monday illustrated all that’s at stake, and maybe even whether March Madness, which Florida wrapped up with a 65-63 title-clinching victory over Houston, will look the same in coming years.

So while Florida guard Walter Clayton Jr.’s clutch stop in the final seconds might have produced the day’s biggest headline, federal judge Claudia Wilken’s decision about the multibillion-dollar college-sports lawsuit settlement — which could come within days, weeks, months, who knows? — will carry more weight.

“Basically I think it is a good settlement, don’t quote me, and I think it’s worth pursuing,” Wilken said near the close of the daylong hearing she held in Oakland that finished about an hour before tipoff in the Alamodome. “I think some of these things could be fixed if people tried to fix them and that it would be worth their while to try to fix them.”

Judge seeks solutions for roster limits, future college players

Among Wilken’s top-line items is figuring a way to gradually implement roster limits prescribed by the lawsuit. A solution could prevent an immediate wholesale phase-out of hundreds of football players, swimmers, sprinters and other college athletes across the country.

She also wants tweaks to how athletes who haven’t yet reached college might be treated per terms of an agreement that’s supposed to last 10 years.

“We’re taking your feedback. We’ll take it to our clients,” NCAA attorney Rakesh Kilaru told Wilken.

The clock is ticking.

As currently structured, terms of the settlement are due to take effect on July 1, when the biggest change will be schools’ ability to pay athletes directly. Also at stake is $2.78 billion in backpay to former players who weren’t eligible for those payments.

Putting settlement’s terms in play will impact all sports

That’s where it comes back to the Gators, along with the thousands of varsity teams and players participating in college sports — from swimmers to pitchers to quarterbacks and everyone in between.

Like every other coach, Florida’s Todd Golden is learning to work with a payroll. It’s funded both from third-party booster groups that can funnel money to the players, and then, if Wilken gives the OK, from a pool of $20.5 million that schools like his will distribute among all its athletes — but mostly to football and a little less to basketball.

Those financial decisions, in turn, will dictate roster decisions and determine whether the Gators can afford another player like Clayton.

He’s the senior who left a small northeastern school, Iona, to come back to his home state and join Golden and the Gators. He scored 134 points in six tournament games that culminated with Monday’s final. He will be playing in the NBA next year.

Houston frustrated him and held him to 11 points in his final game as a collegian. But Clayton got the last laugh when he charged toward Cougars guard Emanuel Sharp, who was lining up for what could have been the game-winning 3-pointer with the clock ticking down in a tense, rugged, defense-focused game that left everyone on edge.

Clayton’s defense forced Sharp to let the ball go without shooting. It bounced once, then twice, then a third time — Sharp couldn’t grab it, lest he be called for traveling — before Clayton’s Florida teammate Alex Condon pounced on it and the buzzer sounded.

“I do think what separates us and has separated us all season long is our team talent, how our guys have played together and for each other all year,” Golden said. “Because of that, we can call each other national champions for the rest of our lives.”

While the Gators got ready to cut down the nets, the well-worn favorite, “One Shining Moment” — a treacly highlight reel from America’s three-week hoops extravaganza — played on the big screen above.

Florida sprinted and Houston trudged through the tunnel, into their locker rooms, and basketball — and college sports, in general — began the long wait to see what comes next.

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