Written by Jonathan Leshanski (Contact & Archive) on June 18, 2003
This is the fourth and the final part of the series.
“It was difficult for the fans to understand my problems with baseball. I was telling my story to deaf ears, because I was telling my story to a person who would give their first-born child to be doing what I was doing.” - Curt Flood
On January 16, 1970, just over two weeks after it was announced by the NY Times, Curt Flood filed a $4.1 million lawsuit against Major League Baseball and the legality of the reserve clause. In doing so he turned his back on playing baseball, his $90,000 a year salary and his hopes of being considered for enshrinement in the Hall of Fame as one of the best players of his day. He knew full well that he was challenging legal precedent, the scorn of owners and a public who only perceived baseball and its players as larger than life, perfect institutions.
In order to stand a chance Flood and his attorney Arthur Goldberg realized that they needed to chop down the metaphoric cherry tree and go after the myths of baseball itself. Baseball could not be left untarnished with its myths of perfection being seen as the truth. Instead Flood needed to show what really went on behind the scenes - the drugs, the sex, drinking, debauchery and crudeness. He exposed the ugly realities to the light and many fans recoiled - but many failed to believe him. To them Curt Flood was an enemy trying to destroy the game.
And that was how the owners painted him too. Still by exposing the truth, the game became less pure and the facade of baseball began to crack. In 1971 Flood published a book “The Way It Is” while his case was still on its way to the Supreme Court. It was not a pretty book about the myths and niceties of baseball, but an ugly one that shocked a lot of people (We’ll review it in a few weeks) and changed the perception of baseball forever.
He also reached out to the common man and tried to draw comparisons that everyone could understand - that of the good company man who worked his tail off to make the company succeed and then only got shown the door without even a thank you, for all he had done. These were comparisons that the common laborer could understand - and it made them mad. Curt’s vocabulary over the months reinforced his case, referring to the players, as “sheep,” “goods,” ‘poultry” or even as a “car” which could be transferred from owner to owner upon a whim without any thought whatsoever to the “sheep” being transferred.
The arguments that Goldberg and Flood furnished were strong. They argued that both the Sherman anti-trust act and the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States were violated by the reserve clause. They paraded economists to testify that the reserve clause illegally suppressed the free market system and held down wages. They spoke of players who crossed swords with the game as being blacklisted, blackmailed and of owner collusion and so much more. They brought players to testify, though not many - even former players were afraid of being blacklisted. Still there were courageous baseball men who took the stand believing in the truth of Flood’s words - including the outspoken but respected Jackie Robinson.
The counterpoint to Flood was the established myth of baseball, presented as pure, innocent and vital not just to the owners’ pockets but to America itself. Baseball paraded its good company men - players who believed that baseball would be irreversibly damaged by the abandonment of the reserve clause. Baseball could pick and choose its spokesmen - and they did it well. They brought up players and owners to speak of the “good of the game.” They explained that the reserve clause could not be a violation of the 13th amendment because baseball players could always find other forms of employment and were not bound to the game.
However the “Good of the Game” was the crux of their arguments. They put forward that baseball would be destroyed by free agency and that the game, as it was known to our fathers, grandfathers, and their grandfathers, would be lost forever. They realized some truths - that baseball would be changed, that the richest teams would monopolize the best players, and that the best players would always be changing teams and seeking the best offer - and they presented it as a nightmare.
On top of it, they talked about the money, which was perhaps the most important factor in the case to the owners. They compared Flood’s salary to that of the common man to illustrate that the players lived high on the hog. How, they argued, could a man make that much money and be considered under the thumb of ownership and not a free and lucky man?
Perhaps even without the eloquence of baseball’s attorneys the case would have been one sided, justice had a predisposition towards the mythology of baseball, or perhaps the judges were afraid that their rulings might make them destroyers of the game. Time after time they found themselves unable, despite clear-cut legal footing, to create new laws when it came to the game of baseball.
On August 12, 1970 Federal Judge Ben Cooper ruled against Curt Flood, upholding the reserve clause and dismissed the lawsuit - but he noted that players and owners need to negotiate the issue. Soon afterwards, Flood appealed to a higher court and again lost in the US Circuit Court of Appeals. Shortly after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case. On June 18, 1972 in a 5-3 decision they too ducked making a change in the fabric of the national pastime and passed the buck, saying that Congress needed to be the ones to amend the anti-trust exemption which baseball enjoyed.
Curt accepted the loss and tried to play ball again in 1971, but played only 13 games for the Washington Senators before retiring and moving to Denmark. He felt hated and persecuted for his lawsuit and chose not to return to the United States until late in the ‘70s. He died in 1997 of throat cancer.
However, even in defeat Flood had changed the American sport beyond belief. The Supreme Court had ruled for baseball, but on a technicality and they had made that clear. Baseball only escaped because it was an aberration under the law, but that the law SHOULD be rewritten - and the Supreme Court could not do that.
More than that however, Flood had aired baseball’s dirty laundry, and while in 1969 the average fan had no idea of baseball’s labor and negotiating policies at the end of Flood’s suit they certainly did. By and large the public was strongly against the reserve clause by a margin of close to 9:1. Because of this pressure the owners agreed to allow arbitration but kept the reserve clause alive.
Three years later however, arbiter Peter Seitz struck down the reserve clause when Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally filed grievances over it. They did it for money but it was done on the groundwork that Curt Flood had laid. Free agency had finally been achieved. An angry Flood felt the color of McNally and Messersmith’s skins had been a deciding factor in striking down the clause - and baseball’s not seeking to fight it.
Curt Flood never benefited from free agency, but instead paid a terrible price in lost coaching/managing jobs, the end of his career and any chance he would have had at the Hall of Fame. Still his courage in challenging baseball and showing the public what went on behind closed doors - opened them to succeeding generations of players who’ve come to enjoy free agency.
While the premise of free agency can be challenged as to whether it has added to or detracted from the game, the courage that Flood showed could not. Upon his death he was eulogized on the floor of the US Congress. However his legacy would not die there. In 1998 Congress passed what is known as the “Curt Flood Act of 1998”. In it they clarified and changed baseball’s anti-trust exemption to state that professional baseball players would be covered under the general and accepted anti-trust laws without in any other way effecting baseball’s anti trust exemption.
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