After the leadership of the Major League Baseball players’ union voted, 26-12, to approve a new labor deal on Thursday afternoon — following years of building mistrust of management and months of tense negotiating — M.L.B.’s commissioner, Rob Manfred, picked up the phone.
Much has been made about the frayed relationship between the two groups — M.L.B., which is run by the owners of the 30 clubs, and the union, which is run by the players — that led to the sport’s first work stoppage in 26 years. And the heads of the two sides rarely meet face to face: Manfred, a labor lawyer who rose to the commissioner’s office in 2015, and Tony Clark, a former player who was tabbed as the union leader in 2013.