![]() When Flood testified in court, not a single other active player showed up because they were terrified of the owners. It’s also worth noting the atmosphere of fear Flood faced. He did manage to play 13 games in 1971 for the Senators, but was out of baseball after that. Although he was beginning to fade in his age 31 season, he likely had at least one more good year in him. So Flood, a political man with a great deal of courage, was willing to take this sacrifice and use racially charged language in doing so. In 1964, Flood successfully sued a man who had sold Flood his house in the Oakland suburb of Alamo, CA without meeting him when Flood arrived, the owner pulled a shotgun and refused to let him and his pregnant wife entrance. Flood himself had a long history of activism, including attending civil rights rallies in Mississippi in 1962, a risky move for any African-American but perhaps even more so for an “outsider,” coming from Oakland as Flood did. As he put it, “Yes, you’re an American and have the right to seek employment anywhere you like, but this right does not apply to baseball players.” Miller told Flood this would kill his career but Flood was willing to go to the mat in order to improve the lives of baseball players in the future. Miller himself was outraged by the reserve clause. Miller convinced the other players, many of whom were skeptical and turned off by the slavery rhetoric (the white ones anyway), to bankroll Flood’s case. He had won credibility with players by winning a collective bargaining agreement from the owners in 1968 that raised the minimum salary from $6000 to $10,000, which was pretty significant. Hired by the MLBPA away from the United Steelworkers of America in 1966, Miller desperately wanted to turn the organization into a force that would, among other things, destroy the reserve clause. Luckily for Flood, he had an ally at the MLBPA in lawyer Marvin Miller. It was established in 1953 to provide some level of representation but was weak in its early years. The Major League Baseball Players Association was trying to become a real union. He claimed not only did the reserve clause violate antitrust laws, but also the Thirteenth Amendment, doubling down on the slavery comparison in a time of great racial tension in the United States. When Kuhn denied his request, expressing some outrage at the slavery comparison, Flood sued for his release. That’s not nothing, but for a well above-average outfielder in a profession with a relatively short work life, it was not nearly enough for the profits he generated through his work. This labor of course made owners an incredible amount of money, of which the players saw very little. In other words, when the owner was ready to dispense with them or the player decided to quit.įlood referenced slavery in his letter, writing, ”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.” This was a shot at the total control white owners had over all players’ labor, who were supposed to be happy that they could play a kid’s game and appreciative of the father figure-owner who gave them the opportunity. This gave owners total control over player labor, allowing the movement of players from team to team only through trade, release, or retirement. The key tool for this was the reserve clause. Major League Baseball had long exploited its players. Thus began a process that freed professional sports athletes from total control by the owners and began the period of free agency, when athletes were finally paid fairly for the revenues they generated. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood wrote a letter to Major League Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn protesting a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies and asking to be declared a free agent.
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