Remember the Major League Baseball strike? I had kind of forgotten about it, and then I was reminded of it last night. It's been a long time. And it'll be a long time until the next one. Players and owners have been trying to work out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement for a while, and according to Ken Rosenthal, on Thursday, they have reached a deal.

Full details won't be available until Monday, when a formal announcement is made, but Rosenthal says the deal is five years in length, which will give MLB at least 21 straight years of labor peace. That's a nice thing for us to hear while the NBA crumbles. Maybe that's an unfair characterization, but I know there aren't any games, and I know there are supposed to be games. The NBA is in trouble. MLB is not.

This isn't really huge news, given that an agreement was always expected. At no point was there real danger that the two sides would reach an impasse. Still, it'll be nice for everyone to put this behind them.

One can expect this news to breathe life into the free-agent market. While, again, we don't know details, the new CBA is supposed to introduce some changes to free-agent compensation, maybe immediately. I'm referring to Type As and Type Bs. The new CBA is also supposed to introduce some new rules pertaining to the amateur draft. The rumor is that, while there won't be hard slotting for each individual pick, teams will be operating with a total budget cap, and will face mandatory penalties if they exceed it.

I don't know. We'll find everything out on Monday, and from there we'll see about the implications. Baseball's going to be a little different than it has been in recent years. But it'll be baseball, and there will be games. No complaints.