![]() Supreme Court, Flood lost the case by a 5-3 vote. Eventually, a judge in Federal District Court in New York ruled that players and teams should negotiate the “reserve clause,” which essentially kept a player tied to a team for years and years unless cut or traded. Kuhn rejected his idea.įlood took the issue to court. He asked for the right to consider offers from teams other than the Phillies. “I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the sovereign States.” ![]() In a letter to then-Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, Flood wrote, “After twelve years in the Major Leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. They both testified for Flood in court, as did former team owner Bill Veeck. Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg, two former players, were the only two to back him publicly. No current players felt bold enough to back him, feeling they would lose their jobs. It’s important to note that Flood stood alone during his court case. Miller said it would cost him his career and that no team would hire him. The rules, although hazily written, stated that players play the next season for the team they played for the season before.įlood went to Marvin Miller, director of the Player’s Association, and said he wanted to sue Major League Baseball. Due to the longstanding “reserve clause,” players essentially were owned by teams. Flood rejected the trade and said he would not go. But at the end of the 1969 season, the Cardinals made a deal to trade him to the Philadelphia Phillies. Rejecting The Tradeįlood had won two World Series rings as a member of the Cardinals in 19. It also prepared him for the legal battle to come. He sued and won the case, according to The Atlantic, but the experience scarred him. The man had not known he was black when he rented him the apartment.įlood had already won a World Series with the Cardinals, but couldn’t enter his own apartment. However, in 1964 he ran into prejudice back home in California, when the man he rented an apartment from barred him entry. Martin Luther King in his non-violent protests against racial bigotry. But really it all started long before that.įlood was born in Houston in 1938, but his mother moved the family to Oakland, Calif., to escape the racial prejudices then rampant in the South.Īs a young man, schooled by his mother on the Civil Rights movement, Flood traveled in 1962 to Mississippi to join Dr. The legal battle started in 1969, when Flood rejected being traded. ![]() His battle to take control of his own career, rather than essentially being the property of a baseball team, transformed the game. Flood, despite a set of hard challenges, almost single-handedly ushered in the era of free agency in baseball by suing the league. Louis Cardinals, are not the reason he is remembered. ![]() But Flood’s numbers during his career from 1956 to 1971, all but two of them with the St. The center fielder made the All-Star team three times in his career, won seven consecutive Gold Gloves and had a lifetime batting average of. Curt Flood had a stellar career in Major League Baseball.
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