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Curt Flood
The Original Decision: Curt Flood's Sacrifice For Future Athletes.
An RCE Exclusive
By Byron Lee
FREEDOM FIGHTERS: Flood, who took part in NAACP protests in the early 60's, holding a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King.
"I can't believe ESPN is letting him do this."
"Jim Gray? Really?"
"He just dumped an entire city on national television."
"What if Albert dumps us?"
Many thoughts raced through the minds of people in our city as we mulled over the spectacle that was "LeBron James: The Decision." What was lost in the discussion, before and after, is the fact that a kid who was born to meager beginnings in Houston, who worked his way to stardom in St. Louis, who fought all the way to the Supreme Court in an effort to defeat indentured servitude, only to now languish in obscurity, is the very reason these athletes have "decisions" in the first place.
For this issue of the River City Examiner, we will examine the struggle of Curt Flood.
Curt Flood entered the world on January 18, 1938, the youngest of six children born to industrious, yet underprivileged parents. The family moved to Oakland in 1940 and, at the age of nine, Flood began playing what was then called midget-league baseball. (He credits the presence of coach George Powles, as well as Jim Chambers {a teach at Herbert Hoover High School} with keep him off the path of crime and drug addiction that consumed his brother Carl.) The youngest Flood, despite being small and slender, impressed so many people with his ability on the field that he was able to sign a contract with the Cincinnati Reds immediate after graduating from high school, in 1956.
Flood maintains that it was during his minor league career, when he played in Florida and North Carolina, that he was first exposed to the evils of segregation. In 1994 Ken Burns documentary "Baseball", Flood says, "Even though I was raised in the black ghetto, I was not used to the immense dislike some people had for you. I was not used to going into a black entrance. It was not easy for me, or the white players." Flood recalls another indignity with wry humor. "When it came time to do laundry, our equipment manager, with skill and great stealth, used a stick to separate my clothing from the other guys' clothing, because mine had to go to a black cleaners and theirs had to go to a white cleaners."
Flood battled through the degradation and made it up to the major leagues at the end of the 1956 season. Yet, due to the Reds' surplus of outfielders (Flood played centerfield.), Flood was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals before the 1957 season.
Flood would have a remarkable run during his twelve-year tenure with the Cardinals, playing a major role in two World Championship seasons. In 1964, when the Cardinals beat the New York Yankees, he led the National League in hits. Three seasons later, when the Boston Red Sox were beaten for the crown, his batting average was a personal best of .335. It was his defense, however, that truly made him standout. His skill at tracking fly balls and keeping batters from getting extra bases was well-known. He won seven Gold Gloves and made not one error during the 1966 season.
By the 1969 season, Flood not only had tremendous respect in the public eye and in the clubhouse, but he also had a $90,000 a year salary. It was at this time that Flood would become more vocal in his grievances with the Cardinals organization. He was upset at the substandard housing for black ballplayers (Flood says, in his revelatory 1971 autobiography, written with Richard Carter, "The Way It Is," that he once lived for a season in a house of ill repute for fear of been labeled if his voiced his displeasure.). Furthermore, he criticized management for placing rookies in the batting order, allowing opposing teams to avoid facing more establishing players by walking them. Finally, he spoke up regarding what he felt was the ownership's constraints on the ballplayers' outside business interests.
Flood claims that the situation came to a head when he missed a banquet for season-ticket holders due to drowsiness from a shot meant to remedy an injury. Before the beginning of the 1970 season, he received a phone call that would change the course of history. His rights had been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. He had no say in the matter, due to a reserve clause, which prevented Flood from being able to negotiate with any team that might desire his services. "I knew that the reserve clause was illegal," Flood says, in the documentary clip. "Every contract must have a beginning and an end. The clause was being perpetuated year after year, even though you only signed a one year contract. If the Yankees dung up Babe Ruth, they would still own him."
Flood's wife at the time asked him a fateful question: "Why not sue?" "Marvin Miller, the players association rep at the time, told me to go back to California and think about what I was going to do." Flood continues in the documentary, "Something about taking on the kind of people who own baseball teams can be daunting. They don't just own teams, they own everything else in existence."
As quoted in Robert Goldman's 2008 book "One Man Out: Curt Flood Versus Baseball," Flood sent the following letter to then-Commissioner Bowie Kuhn on Christmas Eve, 1969:
Dear Mr. Kuhn:
After 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system that produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and the several states.
It is my desire to play baseball in 1970 and I am capable of playing. I have received a contract from the Philadelphia club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decisions. I, therefore, request that you make known to all the major league clubs my feelings in this matter, and advise them of my availability for the 1970 season.
(One can't help but think of this letter, in light of the venomous missive posted by Cavaliers' majority owner Dan Gilbert. Even though it can be said that Gilbert was trying to rally a heartbroken city, the tone of the letter made James's admittedly tacky actions look absolutely regal, by comparison.)
After receiving a response from Kuhn that Flood was to report to the Phillies, Flood moved forward with a lawsuit. Adding fuel to the fire would be a 1970 interview with eventual advocate Howard Cosell on "ABC's Wide World Of Sports." Cosell would say to Flood "It's been written, Curt, that you’Äôre a man who makes $90,000 a year, which isn't exactly slave wages. What's your retort to that?" Flood would infamously respond "A well-paid slave is nonetheless, a slave."
Flood's words and stance, as documented in William Gillis's meticulously researched 2009 article "Rebellion in the Kingdom of Swat" (published in American Journalism), generated strong opinions. Among his chief detractors was Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who took issue with the request of monetary damages in Flood's suit when he wrote, "So it is difficult indeed to be sympathetic to the little man, particularly when it really is not a matter of principle, but of principal. If principle were really involved in his legal assault on baseball's reserve clause as violating the federal antitrust laws, Flood would have asked for $1 and the right to negotiate for himself." (It should be noted that also appearing in the Post-Dispatch was a cartoon by Amadee Wohlschlaeger that portrayed Flood drawing a portrait of an unkempt, weak looking white man. The image on the canvas is that of a dollar sign. Flood tells his model "It keeps coming out that way.") Furthermore, Hal March of the Bennington Banner (out of Vermont) voiced the resentment some of the majority felt toward the new breed of outspoken black athletes when he called Flood one of those sports figures who were "criticizing, maligning, denouncing, spitting, quitting and generally crapping on their sport." Finally, Holmes Alexander of the Fremont/Newark Argus (of California) said that "Race consciousness has increased, rather than lessened, in baseball.... Black players, like the Black Caucus in Congress, are racist aggressors. The fabric of the game, the fabric of politics, is warped."
Other writers, also quoted by Gillis, were just as forceful in coming to Flood's defense. Syndicated columnist Red Smith (who, notably, used terms such as "strike off the fetters of baseball's reserve clause," "intolerable bondage" and "the slave trade," in reference to Flood's situation, with little or no scrutiny) wrote, "Flood can still earn $90,000 a year but he is sacrificing the remainder of his career for a principle."
Furthermore, Leonard Koppett, of both the Sporting News and the New York Times, wrote that, while he found the use of the word slave " an unnecessary exaggeration," he also felt that "racial discrimination [in baseball] takes subtle forms, but is nonetheless real a full generation after the advent of Jackie Robinson." Robert Markus of the Chicago Tribune stated, "I don't see how [the Supreme Court] can deny that the reserve clause is a form of slavery," while Bob Considine gave a vivid analogy in supposing that if a Florida plumber was kept from going to Alaska there would be "yells of rage" and "flutter[s] of subpoenas."
Strong support for Flood could also be found in the pages of black newspapers. Activist Bayard Rustin, in a 1970 column for the Philadelphia Tribune, wrote the following:
Flood stands in the tradition of such black athletes as Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali who, in addition to achieving great status within their profession, took courageous stands on issues of human rights. For these reasons, Curt Flood deserves our support and our respect.
Like many pioneers before him, Flood found the legal system to be rough going. He lost in both the lower federal courts and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. He did not play during the 1970 season and briefly played with the Washington Senators (the team to which he had been dealt by the Phillies) in 1971, where it appeared that his desire to play had deteriorated. At this time, Flood was battling alcoholism and was reeling from financial burdens brought about by child support demands and bad investments.
Soon, the final blow, or what seemed like it, was handed down. The Supreme Court ruled against Flood, 5-3, (One justice who had been an advocate for Flood, Lewis Powell, abstained from voting, due to having stock in Anheuser-Busch.) "Realistically, what we were arguing was that one person couldn't own another person for life," said Flood, in the "Baseball." "Well, Abraham Lincoln took care of that, didn't he? And the Supreme Court said 'Yes, Mr. Flood. You're right. One person cannot own another person, whether it be a baseball player, or whatever, but we're not going to do anything about it.'"
Even though he lost the case, he won in the court of public opinion. The case drew attention to the unjust nature of the reserve clause. Commonly held sentiment hit a peak in 1975, when pitchers Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally played a year without a contract, then went to arbitration. After a judgment in their favor, free agency was born, with all players privy to the benefits that would come with it.
Sadly, Flood, would have to wait until his death on January 20, 1997 (of throat cancer) until he received the kind of treatment that many pioneers miss during their living years. In 1998, Congress passed the Curt Flood Act, giving baseball players the same protection under antitrust laws that all other athletes enjoyed. In his signing statement, then-President Clinton, as quoted in Goldman's book, wrote, "It is especially fitting that this legislation honors a courageous baseball player and individual, the late Curt Flood, whose enormous talents on the baseball diamond were matched by his courage off the field. It was 29 years ago this month that Curt Flood refused a trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies. His bold stand set in motion the events that culminate in the bill I have signed into law." Furthermore, then-Players' Association representatives Tom Glavine and David Cone expressed a similar view in their joint statement, also found in "One Man Out": "Every major league baseball player owes Curt Flood a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid. With the odds overwhelmingly against him, he was willing to take a stand for what he knew was right." (Adds Washington University Professor Gerald Early, in Flood's entry in the second edition of "Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience," "[Flood's fight] actually transcended race. It was more powerfully related to the public's view of athletes not merely as performers or machines, but rather as men and women with vital concerns about their well-being and vested interests that they should be permitted to protect, as other workers could.") In addition to these honors, Flood was inducted into California's Baseball Reliquary, an institution that honors players for both their on-field play and their character. Moreover, Time Magazine's Daniel Ockrent listed Flood as one of the ten most influential sports figures of the twentieth century. Finally in 2007, Flood received 17.1 percent of the vote from Major League Baseball's Veterans Committee, placing him on the ballot for induction into the Hall of Fame.
Putting this importance into verse, poet Tim Peeler further immortalized Flood in a 1991 piece, quoted by Goldman, named after the ball player:
try to tell 'em Curt,
how you crowned their wallets,
climbed courtroom steps
for them
swallowed that black ball,
a scapegoat out to pasture.
they don't remember
the trash you are
your greedy headlines,
the slope of your career.
you are a ghost at barterer's wing,
your smoky grey eyes
are two extra zeroes
on every contract.
For his own part, Flood, who had found happiness in his marriage to actress Judy Pace, seemed to have a bright outlook on his life. In one of his final interviews (with San Francisco Chronicle reporter Joan Ryan, as quoted in the Goldman tome) he said, "I lost money, coaching jobs...But when you weigh that against all the things that are really and truly important, things that are deep inside you, then I think I've succeeded. People try to make a Greek tragedy of my life and they can't do it. I'm too happy. Remember when I told you about the American dream? That if you worked hard enough, and tried hard enough, and kicked yourself in the butt, you'd succeed. Well, I think I did. I think I did."
No matter what we may think of LeBron's antics, or Albert’Äôs ultimate choice, they both have Number 21 to thank for the lifestyles and options they enjoy.
One man's stand created a flood of prosperity for modern athletes.
For further reading on this subject, please see Curt Flood's "The Way It Is" and Brad Snyder's "A Well-Paid Slave."