Storyline: Modern ballplayers own a lot to Curt Flood and what he did to bring down MLB’s “Reserve Clause.” Flood had a great pro career, too, and deserves to be in baseball’s Hall of Fame.
Jim Brown (Photo courtesy of ESPN)
Cutting against the grain, especially when it involves powerful institutions, carries high risk for athletes—for minority athletes in particular.
Jackie Robinson crossed baseball’s “Color Line.” Cassius Clay said ‘No!” to the military. John Carlos and Tommie Smith protested publicly at the ’68 Olympics. Arthur Ashe was a civil rights activist. And Jim Brown and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar continue speaking out about problematic social and political circumstances.
At the head of this class stands Curt Flood. Forty-five years ago he confronted Major League Baseball about the “Reverse Clause.” Peers did not join him. The public was generally against him. And the action cost Flood his baseball career—a career with Hall of Fame numbers.
But the action that Flood took nearly a half-century ago led to the transformation of professional sports—all sports, not just baseball. The Reserve Clause was eventually replaced by Free Agency, and that move shifted the balance of power from team owners to players, democratizing baseball.
Courtesy: thethirdcity.com
Up to that point team owners “owned” players. The Reserve Clause “bound a player to a single team…even if the individual contracts he signed nominally covered only one season. For most of baseball history, the term of reserve was held to be essentially perpetual, so that a player had no freedom to change teams unless he was given his unconditional release.”
Flood challenged The Reserve Clause in 1969 by refusing to join the Philadelphia Phillies after a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals. It would have been a coup for the Phillies. Flood had stellar numbers with the Cardinals (1958-69). He was a 3-time NL All-Star, 7-time Golden Glove winner, and hit over .300 six times (.293 overall) with the team. The Cardinals were at two-time World Series winner during those years.
Courtesy: National Archives
Flood didn’t want to go to the Phillies, a struggling team that played in a rundown Connie Mack Stadium. And Flood was wary of playing before fans with a reputation for abusing “colored players.” So he protested to MLB Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, requesting the right to consult about his future.
Flood told Kuhn that “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.” Flood felt he had “a right to consider offers from other clubs before making any decision.”
Kuhn rejected the request and Flood subsequently sued MLB though the MLB Players Association. In the suit Flood contended that The Reserve Clause violated the 13th Amendment, which barred slavery and involuntary servitude. The suited ended up at The Supreme Court, which found for the Defendant and against Flood.
Although MLB won that battle it eventually lost the war. Soon thereafter—in 1975 to be specific—arbitrator Peter Seitz found for the MLB Players Association (and the legendary labor leader, Marvin Miller) in another suit. It was an historic ruling that (in effect) grated what we know today as “free agency” to Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally.
That decision not only paved the way for freedom to negotiate, it also escalated players’ salaries because teams now had to compete for players’ signings.
But Flood paid a supreme price—with his career. The trade with Philadelphia went through—even though Flood never played for the team in 1970. In 1971 the Phillies traded him to the Senators. Flood signed and played, but he had only 35 at-bats in 13 games that year, hitting .200. His career was over.
Courtesy: Amazon.com
After retiring from the game Flood wrote a memoir, The Way It Is, and served in a variety of positons and roles—some in baseball and others outside—never achieving the success or fame that he had found on the field. He struggled financially, going bankrupt at one point. He died young (of cancer) in 1997 at age 59.
Flood’s legacy is secure, but not without continuing controversy. Alvin Reid, writing in the St. Louis American, expressed surprise that Flood was elected recently into Class #2 of the Cardinals Hall of Fame. “There are still some old-school feelings among Cardinals fans,” Reid wrote.” I thought it would be many years before Flood was elected to the team’s Hall of Fame. I’m glad I was wrong.”
And MLB will honor Flood on July 25 at Cooperstown (the day before HOF inductions) at a ceremony led by Tony Clark, head of the MLB Players’ Association. Clark will focus on Flood’s challenge of MLB’s Reserve Clause, not on his baseball career.
But in the minds of some, at least, it was a Hall of Fame-worthy career. But not enough HOF voters thought so during the years Flood was up for election: he never received more than 15.5% of the vote. Now the only hope for Flood rests with The Veteran’s Committee.
Curt Flood with Marvin Miller (Photo courtesy of historyrat.wordpress.com
Perhaps only one thing is inarguable about Curt Flood’s baseball career. One reviewer of his book put it this way: “Whenever today’s highly paid athletes look in their wallet they should thank Curt Flood.”
______________________________
(Watch ESPN’s Outside the Lines for a panel discussion of Curt Flood’s legacy (from June 26 2015.)
This is way overdue, for Flood as well as for Marvin Miller, whose impact on the game makes him a natural for the Hall. None of Flood’s friends, like Big bad Bob Gibson or Frank Robinson, or Bill White would testify for him in court.They knew their careers would be over if they did. But Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg did. Flood changed the game in his way as much as Jackie did. How much money did he make for today’s players? And he never profited from his brave act. He was a complex, and not entirely sympathetic man, but the Hall is a farce without him. What is it? Still resistance from the owner$?
GREAT ARTICLE FRANK.