Media impact of new MLB agreement?

There was a lot of rumbling over the last year or two that the players were pushing hard to limit media access to the clubhouse in the new labor deal. Haven't seen anything about that in the initial reports that something has been hammered out (nor would I expect to), but I'm wondering if anyone has heard if anything came of those efforts.

I'm pretty sure Selig is on record as saying access would remain in place as long as he was around, but he can't have that much time left...can he?

 

I have not read anything about the new CBA limiting media access and, trust me, if there was anything there, Murray Chass would have written about it in today's Times.

 

Bud Selig refused to include it in discussions, although Players Association proposed it.

 

Selig says he's retiring when his contract expires in 2009.

That will be a dark day for baseball writers, no matter what you think of the wild card or interleague play or 8:30 pm ET World Series starts. Selig is old-school ... reads papers, loves papers, engages writers whenever he can.

I expect -- and I hope I'm wrong -- that the next commissioner will limit access, favor ESPN and Fox even more and encourage teams to post their news on mlb.com first, then announce to other media later, so as to drive readers to the team website and away from other outlets.

 

I sure hope that doesn't happen. The NFL's already being dickwads for limiting local stations' camera access along the sidelines (they want the precious NFL Network to get all the choice highlights), and one of the things I've always said is "baseball would never do that".

Never say never, I guess?