For 25 years, labor peace has prevailed in Major League Baseball, players and ownership alike getting rich in the years after an eight-month work stoppage canceled the 1994 World Series and imperiled the ’95 season.

The players themselves enjoyed an even longer streak: Since Marvin Miller guided the MLB Players’ Association into its first collective bargaining agreement with owners in 1968, the game’s greatest stars enjoyed more than four decades of salary gains and an immeasurable boost to their quality of life.

But that streak has ended. And so, too, might more than a quarter-century without a work stoppage.

After a second consecutive winter that’s seen veteran players pushed to the margins of the game, and superstars forced to wait until deep into February – or longer – to receive what they feel is fair market value for their services, baseball’s stars and its rank and file are fixing for a fight.

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