NEW YORK -- Baseball owners and players have ratified the sports new five-year collective bargaining agreement, extending their labor peace to 26 years through 2021.The sides announced their approvals Wednesday, a day after holding votes in separate telephone meetings.This agreement allows us to build on the positive momentum from last season and promote a generation of young players, baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred said in a statement.After eight work stoppages from 1972-95, the sides have negotiated deals without a strike or lockout in 2002, 2006, 2011 and this year. The new deal expires Dec. 1, 2021.Teams voted 29-1 to approve, and Tampa Bay Rays managing general partner Stuart Sternberg was the lone dissenting vote, a person familiar with that meeting told The Associated Press. The person spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity because the vote breakdown was not announced.While Sternberg declined to comment on the vote, he did express his views on the deal.I am thankful for the hard work, leadership, and spirit of compromise that were essential to this agreement coming together, he said in an email to the AP. However, twice a decade, the bargaining process provides an opportunity to address the extraordinary and widening competitive gap that exists on-field between higher and lower revenue clubs. I feel that opportunity was missed here.The union said its executive board unanimously ratified the Basic Agreement, Benefit Plan Agreement, Joint Drug Agreement and Joint Policy on Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse.Former All-Star first baseman Tony Clark led the unions negotiations for the first time. He took over as executive director following the death of Michael Weiner in November 2013.The players involvement during negotiations was both essential and unprecedented, and todays unanimous vote was the culmination of those efforts, Clark said in a statement. This was a team effort from beginning to end.Negotiators reached an agreement Nov. 30 in Irving, Texas, about 3+ hours before the expiration of the previous contract.The deal raises the luxury tax thresholds, increases some of the tax rates, imposes a hard cap on signing bonuses for international amateurs and bans smokeless tobacco for players who do not already have major league service.It also eliminates the provision that gave World Series home-field advantage to the All-Star winner and bans rookie hazing that includes costumes as women. Wholesale Soccer Jerseys . You can watch the game live on TSN at 7:30pm et/4:30pm pt. 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Now, with Game 6 set for Fenway Park and an 8:07 p.m. ET first pitch, the Detroit Tigers face the unenviable task of having to beat the Boston Red Sox twice, on the road, to advance to the World Series. RICHMOND, Va. -- The National Federation of State High School Associations has directed its members to regulate the number of pitches a high school player can throw in a game amid growing concerns about overworking young arms.The federation did not proscribe a specific number, but a limit must be established by next season, said Elliot Hopkins, the NFHS director of sports and student services. The limits will go into effect in the spring of 2017.All 50 states plus the District of Columbia are federation members, Hopkins said Tuesday. Each state except Michigan has its own sports medicine advisory committee that will likely be involved in settling on a specific number.I think theyre better suited to determine what the number is, Hopkins said, noting the number in warmer climates, where baseball season starts earlier, might be higher.Some states such as Texas have already established their limit at 125 pitches, and Alabama, Colorado and Kentucky have said that will be their number, too, Hopkins said. Minnesota will use 105 during the season and 115 or 120 in playoffs.Anecdotal evidence suggested it was time to make the change. As a member of the USA Baseball sports medicine advisory committee, Hopkins said he sits between well-known sports surgeon Dr. James Andrews and former major league pitcher Tommy John at meetings. Andrews in 1974 pioneered a surgery, first performed on and then named for Tommy John, that reconstructs the ulnar collateral ligament in a pitchers elbow, allowing pitchers to resume their careers after rehabilitation.During those meetings, Dr. Andrews always expressed how more and more of his service, and his surgeries, revolved around younger kids, Hopkins said.USA Baseball, the national governing body for amateur baseball, in 2014 launched the program Pitch Smart, which sets age-appropriate guidelines for the number of pitches a pitcher as young as 7 can throw and the amount of rest pitchers should get between pitching apppearances.dddddddddddd Most amateur baseball leagues have adopted the guidelines, which set 120 pitches as the maximum recommended for pitchers ages 19-22. The guidelines then also require they receive four days of rest.One impact Hopkins hopes will come from the rule change will be the involvement of more players.You have maybe three or four pitchers in your bullpen typically, he said. Now, well get some kids who really cant throw five innings, cant give you five innings, but they can give you a solid two, and now youve got a bullpen and you get more kids involved.The federation will no longer require its member associations to require a certain amount of rest between appearances by a pitcher.Virginia coach Brian OConnor, whose team won the national championship in 2015, called the changes a step in the right direction but was not sure a single pitch count number will have the desired effect.Somebody could throw 75 pitches three different times in a week, he said.Its not a be all, end all, said Sean Ryan, a high school coach in Richmond whose team at Benedictine plays in the Virginia Independent Schools Athletic Association and will not be subjected to the federation rules. He noted that a young pitcher often moves to another position during a game, or in the teams next game, where he continues throwing in between innings and in the game.Like other sports, youth baseball has a cottage industry offering year-round, specialized instruction. OConnor said he is a big believer in athletes playing several sports, not just baseball.It has everything to do with, I think, other sports creating better athleticism in players and I think its important that they stay competitive year round, he said. I would rather see them on a basketball court working together as a team and staying physically active and competing to win. ' ' '