Curt flood :: essays research papers

Curt Flood was as crucial to the economic rights of ballplayers as Jackie Robinson was to breaking the color barrier. A three-time All-Star and seven-time winner of the Gold Glove for his antitank prowess in center field, Flood hit more than .300 half dozen times during a 15- stratum major league career that began in 1956. xii of those seasons were spent wearing the uniform of the St. Louis Cardinals. After the 1969 season, the Cardinals attempted to trade Flood, and then 31 years of age, to the Philadelphia Phillies, which set in motion his historic take exception of baseball games infamous " retain clause." The reserve clause was that fracture of the standard players contract which bound the player, one year at a time, in perpetuity to the club owning his contract. Flood had no interest in moving to Philadelphia, a metropolis he had forever viewed as racist ("the nations northernmost southern city"), but more importantly, he objected to being treated as a p iece of property and to the restriction of freedom embedded in the reserve clause.Flood was fully aware of the social relevance of his rebellion against the baseball establishment. Years later, he explained, "I guess you really have to view who that person, who that Curt Flood was. Im a child of the sixties, Im a man of the sixties. During that period of time this country was orgasm apart at the seams. We were in Southeast Asia. Good men were destruction for America and for the Constitution. In the southern part of the United States we were marching for polished rights and Dr. King had been assassinated, and we lost the Kennedys. And to think that merely because I was a skipper baseball player, I could ignore what was going on outside the walls of Busch bowl was truly hypocrisy and now I found that all of those rights that these bully Americans were dying for, I didnt have in my own profession."With the O.K. of the Players Association and with former U.S. Supreme Cou rt Justice Arthur Goldberg arguing on his behalf, Flood pursued the case known as Flood v. Kuhn (Commissioner Bowie Kuhn) from January 1970 to June 1972 at district, circuit, and Supreme Court levels. Although the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Flood, upholding baseballs exemption from antitrust statutes, the case set the stage for the 1975 Messersmith-McNally rulings and the approach of free agency.The financial and emotional costs to Flood as a result of his unprecedented challenge of the reserve clause were enormous.