hich is a start at least. Meanwhile the Cali players have already made

NEW YORK -- Baseball players and owners had a deal to expand active rosters from 25 to 26 players for most of the season, but the union backed away in the final stages of collective bargaining.As part of the deal, the limit from Sept. 1 on would have been lowered from 40 to 28.We thought we were going to make an agreement, had a tentative agreement, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred told The Associated Press on Friday, but nothings done until its done.Union head Tony Clark characterized the talks differently and said the parties may revisit the topic during the five-year contract they agreed to Wednesday.I dont know that there was an agreement to do it and that it came apart. There was a lot of dialogue over the course of this round where we were moving in a direction that we inevitably werent able to agree to, he said. It simply got to the point with all of the moving pieces that were part of the conversation during the course of the year that we lived to talk about it another day.Rosters have long expanded for the seasons final full month as minor league affiliates end their campaigns. The roster expansion gives managers the ability to make more frequent pitching changes in an attempt to gain favorable matchups.Some managers and general managers have complained it doesnt make sense to play most of the season under one set of rules and then switch as pennant races heat up. While some teams add many players and a few reach the 40-man limit, others make relatively few call-ups.There were very mixed opinions on the club side, as well, Manfred said. Maybe we were going too far, too fast.Many players make their big league debuts in September, and the union has long been concerned about the loss of service time if the limit were to be lowered from 40.To reduce the roster to 28 people would jeopardize the ability for people to get their feet wet in the big leagues, Oakland catcher Stephen Vogt said in a text. September is a great time for teams to teach the young guys how to act and be in the big leagues and get their feet wet in a comfortable environment.Given the increasing importance of bullpens, some believe a 26th player likely would be an additional relief pitcher.I know there have been a lot of concerns from the other side related to just how it would work and how it might affect the games or the length of games, Clark said. Trying to appreciate that extra player and who it may be is hard to predict based on whatever the organization philosophy is of any one team.Management and the union released details of the deal Friday, an agreement that will extend the sports labor peace to 26 years since the 1994-95 strike -- baseballs eighth work stoppage since 1972.We kept the game on the field, Manfred said. We made an agreement within our current structure which I think shows that we have a durable structure. We moved some things our direction, and we moved some other things their direction.The threshold for the luxury tax, known formally as the competitive balance tax, rises from $189 million this year to $195 million in 2017 to $210 million in the deals final season. There are some rate increases and new surtaxes.The premise of the CBT altogether was a drag at the top to keep teams from running away from the group, Clark said.Manfred added: Theres two dynamics around the threshold: stopping people from running away but also having them low enough that people can aspire to spend a little more to be a little more competitive.Among the new details that emerged:- The penalty for a second stimulant violation goes up from 25 to 50 games and for a third rises from 80 to 100. The penalty for a first violation remains follow-up testing.- Random urine tests will increase from 3,200 to 4,800 in season and from 350 to 1,550 in the offseason, ensuring at least one offseason test for all 40-man roster players. Random blood test rise from 260 to 500 in season and from 140 to 400 in the offseason.- The number of teams disqualified from revenue sharing drops from 15 to 13. A person familiar with the details, speaking on condition of anonymity because no announcement was made, said Atlanta and Houston were the teams that became eligible.- The new All-Star bonus pool for the winning team is $640,000, which calculates to $20,000 per player.- After fan and player voting, the final roster selections in each league (seven in NL and five in AL) will be made by the commissioners office rather than the All-Star managers.- Major league players may not be traded during the final week of the regular season.- While a team with a payroll $40 million or more above the luxury tax threshold would have its highest draft pick dropped 10 places, the top six selections are protected and those teams, if penalized, would have their second pick dropped 10 slots.- The commissioner may schedule regular-season games at ballparks other than the regular sites, and players would receive additional compensation.- Players would receive $15,000 to $100,000 each for special events such as games in Mexico, Asia, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and London.- Signing bonuses of $10,000 or less do not count against a teams international signing bonus pool.- Teams will increase their annual pension and medical benefits contribution to about $200 million.---AP Baseball Writer Janie McCauley contributed to this report.Sale Custom Jerseys . 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Oaklands loss to Seattle clinched the ALs best record for the Red Sox with one day to spare in the regular season. "I think everybody was kind of watching," catcher David Ross said. "Demp (Ryan Dempster) came out before he went to the bullpen and was just yelling that they lost.The stumps are the real giveaway. One red, one yellow, one blue: the colours of the Colombian flag. And, of course, the altitude - at 2600 metres above sea level, fielding here is an exhausting business. So too fast bowling. But everything else about this match feels decidedly English: from the relentless afternoon drizzle to the dominance of a tall Australian with a handlebar moustache. This time, however, those ducking and diving are not batsmen but bowlers (the umpire and non-striker too); and the Australian in question is not Mitchell Johnson but the considerably less well-known Damien Alifraco, a former grade cricketer now living here amid the ever-expanding urban sprawl of Bogota, Colombia.Welcome to the Bogota Sports Club, aka Club Ingles, a little slice of old England on the outskirts of Colombias capital city. Founded and funded by a pair of English expats in 1961, Bogota Sports Club is now on its third location, as detailed here on ESPNcricinfo back in 2000. This June, while the rest of Colombia was focused on an increasingly divisive general election and the football World Cup, the British ambassador was here in the pavilion to watch the cricket with his family. The building - a quirky, brick Modernist-tinged affair - is spacious and well-equipped. In the bar hangs a large portrait of Prince William and Kate Middleton in all their wedding finery. Elsewhere, bare brick walls are adorned with sepia-tinted photos of cricket teams of yore.Hard as it may be to believe, cricket has been played on and off in Colombia for over 100 years, with reports of matches at La Magdalena Jocking Club as far back as 1905. But while the sport has flourished in other South American nations (Argentina, for example, have been ICC Associate Members since 1974) Colombia has been left behind. As the article from 2000 on ESPNcricinfo noted: Like many outposts of the game, the playing numbers and standard varies depending on economic variables which either attract or repel foreign labour to or from the country.The fortunes of cricket in the country therefore provide an echo of the wider economic and political context. In the comparatively peaceful 1970s, with many players employees of the Royal Bank of Canada, Lloyds Bank, and the British Consulate in Cali, frequent matches were played against Caracas and Lima. High-profile visitors included John Morrison and Andy Roberts (playing together for the New Zealand Ambassadors XI in 1970). The apex came perhaps in 1979, with the arrival of the Derrick Robins XI, captained by Chris Cowdrey and including the likes of Bill Athey, Tim Lloyd and Graham Stevenson.But as Colombia became increasingly violent in the 1980s and 90s, the foreigners began to leave. The early 2000s saw the brief return of regular cricket, thanks in part to Norman Bracht, a Canadian expat and some-time ESPNcricinfo correspondent. But in truth, cricket here hasnt been the same since its 1970s heyday.But that may be about to change. The last few years have seen the resurrection of Bogotas long-standing rivalry with Cali, a city some 400km to the south, with the return of a fixture that dates back to 1957. This June saw the Cali team fly in especially for the weekend, so it was a shame it was not more of a contest. After losing the toss and being asked to bat first, Alifraco led from the front with a chanceless innings. With his opening partner, Cameron Forbes, notching a (noticeably less classy) hundred of his own, the Cali bowlers, though tidy, were put to the sword on a matted concrete wicket that offered nothing. Bogota racked up 264 for 1 in their 25 overs, Cali, in reply, never got going (they managed just 67 for 5) and the result was victory for Bogota by the crushing margin of 197 runs.The weekend was notable not only for the game itself but also for a significant step in the evolution of the sport in Colombia. After the match, the two teams gathered in the north of Bogota to mark the inauguration of the new Colombia Cricket Board - at a gastro-pub named (what else?) El Ingles.dddddddddddd. The first aim of the board is to put structures in place to ensure crickets future here. Much credit for this initiative - and for the success of the weekend - must go to Andy Wright, a rugby-playing former banker from Newcastle, who was introduced to the Bogota Sports Club by Bracht. Cricket has been on record in Colombia since 1905, he says. However it has depended upon individuals, and no official club or board has seemingly ever been formed. The idea now is to give more structure to the practice and development of the sport here, so that it stands the test of time even if individuals come and go.Because come and go they do, especially during periods of pronounced political turbulence. The mid-2000s, for example, was among the bloodiest periods in Colombias long-running civil war. As George Bush ramped up his War on Drugs (spending billions on the controversial Plan Colombia), thousands were killed each year in brutal fighting between government armed forces, rebel groups (such as the communist FARC and ELN), and right-wing paramilitaries. Violence is not an attractive proposition for foreign investors, and as the expats departed, so cricket too faded away.In recent years, however, violence in Colombia seems to be on the decline, and the ongoing peace talks taking place in Havana offer at least some hope of a permanent solution. Colombians agree, as President Juan Manuel Santos, who initiated the talks in 2012, has just been voted in for a second term. As the political climate stabilises (leaving aside Bogotas recent mayoral fiasco) investment is returning. Under successive neo-liberal presidents, vast shopping malls have been popping up in the citys affluent north, containing all the usual multinational conglomerates. Wright too returned in 2009 and he is now CEO of UK Colombia Trade, a trade development agency based in the British Embassy, helping British companies do more business in Colombia. At the same time, he has helped to get cricket going again, and with a group of other committed cricketers restarted the traditional fixture against Cali. The long-term aim of the new Colombian Cricket Board is to widen the sports appeal beyond the expat community. This years Cali-Bogota fixture was dominated by English and Australian expats - small businessmen, teachers, journalists, and a member of the British military. But two Colombians also played, which is a start at least. Meanwhile the Cali players have already made great efforts to teach the game to local children - both boys and girls.Wright hopes that cricket can follow the success that rugby has had here. Since rugbys introduction as a purely expat pastime in the 1970s, there are now 12,000 registered players across all the major cities of Colombia. Wright - who coached the national rugby team, The Toucans, at the 2001 World Cup qualifiers - credits the support given by the International Rugby Board. Significant IRB funding has taken rugby to real problem areas in the country, he says, and the sport is changing lives.Its something the ICC could learn from, Wright believes. Other countries in Latin America have registered as Affiliates of the ICC, and Colombia will be hosting two of them (Peru and Brazil) on October 4 and 5 for a tri-national T20 tournament. Unfortunately, as Wright points out, the entry standards have since been raised and Colombia does not currently qualify for ICC support. In order to become an ICC Affiliate, countries must have a minimum of eight senior teams and four junior teams playing in structured competition. But with the country currently in the grip of football World Cup fever its hard to see how cricket could really take off here without significant investment. For now, then, cricket remains a predominantly English pastime, but by some distance the best one there is. ' ' '