With baseball’s offseason "now in the rear-view mirror," Brewers Owner Mark Attanasio has made an effort to "extend an olive branch" on behalf of the league and other owners in the wake of contentious labor negotiations, according to Todd Rosiak of the MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL. Attanasio's comments yesterday in his season-opening remarks at American Family Fields of Phoenix came as the lockout has "widened the already mile-wide rift" between MLB and its players. He said, "We’ve got to do better at not having a skirmish every five years. That’s been my focus, and I think, the focus of a number of other owners, as well." Attanasio is one of the game's "most involved owners, sitting on five committees in all including the labor policy committee." He took part in the negotiations in their earlier stages, and aside from a new CBA "finally being hammered out," he mentioned the "rules changes that have been enacted and are still being discussed as a major positive for the game." Attanasio: "We want to try to improve the product on the field for everybody, players in what they play, fans in what they watch. And we have a real opportunity to do that now. But we want to do that constructively working with the players to and we talked about making the game better." He added, "We want to bring the game back to where it was at in terms of pace of play" (MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL, 3/25).
