Pedro Martinez did not mince words. The hall of fame right-hander, who pitched through the ugliest labor fight in the sport's history, used this weekend to appeal directly to both sides of baseball's current CBA negotiations: get something done, and don't lock out baseball for the fans.

It is a short quote, but it carries the weight of a man who lost real time to this exact fight once already.

Martinez was a young pitcher coming up through the Dodgers organization back in August of 1994 when players walked out over a salary cap dispute, and the sport simply stopped. No games. No World Series. The first time that had happened since 1904, when the Giants refused to play the Red Sox and the Series just didn't exist that year. The 1994 stoppage lasted 232 days, bled into the following spring, and cost the sport a full season's worth of trust with its fans before replacement players and shortened schedules even got mentioned.

what pedro martinez said about mlb labor talks

Martinez's appeal wasn't aimed at one side. He called on players and owners both, which is notable, because most public statements from star alumni tend to pick a lane. Instead, his framing was the fans first: get something done, don't lock out baseball for the fans. That's a guy who remembers exactly what an empty ballpark in a labor fight costs, because he played through the hangover of it for the rest of the decade.

The sport has been here before more recently, too. The 2021 into 2022 lockout ran 99 days, pushed spring training back, and delayed opening day. It got resolved before real games were lost, which matters, because 1994 is the cautionary tale precisely because it wasn't resolved in time.

why the 1994 strike still matters

Here's the almanac beat, because it's worth sitting with for a second: baseball survived the 1994 strike, but it took years to get attendance numbers back to where they'd been. The sport needed the 1998 home run chase, fair or not, to really pull fans back through the turnstiles. That's the actual cost of a work stoppage. Not just the canceled games. The years of rebuilding trust after.

Martinez is 54 now, three decades removed from that first strike year, and he's still the guy fans trust to say the quiet part out loud. He's not a union rep anymore. He's not an owner's mouthpiece. He's just a Hall of Famer who remembers what it felt like to have a season taken away before his career had really started, and he doesn't want the current generation of players, or the kids watching them, to learn that lesson the hard way.

what happens next

The current round of bargaining is still playing out behind closed doors, and the public details are thin right now. What's clear is that voices like Martinez's carry real weight in these moments, the elder statesmen who've lived both sides of a stoppage and aren't shy about saying so. Whether MLB and the players' association actually heed that appeal is the thing to watch over the coming months. The sport has a recent example of getting a deal done without losing games. It also has the scar tissue from the one time it didn't.