Major League Baseball commi sioner Rob Manfred spoke to reporters on Thursday morning, just hours after the team owners voted unanimously to lock out the players and trigger the league's first work stoppage since 1994-95. Though the lockout coincided with the Jed Lowrie Jersey expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, it should be noted that negotiations could have continued without shutting down the league."It's not a good thing for the sport. It's not something that we undertake lightly," . "We understand it's bad for our busine s. We took it out of a desire to drive the proce s forward to an agreement now."Manfred alleged the league didn't observe a sense of urgency from the Players A sociation to make a deal. Locking out the players, Manfred claimed, was the owners' way to apply "pre sure" on the union and make progre s in negotiations."People need pre sure sometimes to get to an agreement," . "But candidly we didn't feel that sense of pre sure on the other side during the course Rollie Fingers Jersey of this week. The only tool available to you under the Tony Phillips Jersey act is to apply economic leverage." That Manfred puts the blame squarely on the Players A sociation should not come as a surprise to anyone; after all, he works for the owners. Union chief Tony Clark, , said that the "the lockout won't pre sure or intimidate players into a deal that they don't believe is fair."Below, we've highlighted four other takeaways from Manfred's first pre s conference of the lockout.Despite Manfred's stated desire to hasten negotiations, the two sides have not scheduled a new meeting since the lockout commenced. Wednesday's supposed last-ditch effort to avoid a lockout saw the two sides meet for all of seven minutes. Both parties are scheduled to depart from Dallas, Texas on Thursday. ( , "It would have been beneficial to the Santiago Casilla Jersey proce s to have spent as much time negotiating in the room as it appeared was spent on the letter.") Manfred's statement used the legal term "defensive lockout," which e sentially means the league feared the players would strike. Manfred confirmed as much during his pre s conference, noting that playing without a new CBA in place would've made the league vulnerable to a strike. In Terry Steinbach Jersey layman's terms: Manfred and the owners wanted to prevent the players from gaining leverage by having that option at their disposal.Throughout negotiations, the two major points of emphasis appeared to be teams' anti-competitive behavior and the now-outdated player compensation model. Manfred, at minimum, confirmed that neither side's proposals have included any actual on-the-field rule changes, including, seemingly, the universal designated hitter. It's unclear if any rule changes will be folded in at a later date.Despite all of the above Matt Joyce Jersey , Manfred stated that he remains " " the season will not be compromised and that games will not be canceled. This is the fourth lockout in MLB history; each of the first three were resolved within 40 days, and none of them saw MLB cancel or postpone a regular-season contest as a result.