He played in three All-Star games and was a catalyst for the St. He won the Gold Glove Award, as the best defensive outfielder, seven years in a row. During his Major League career, which lasted from 1956 to 1969, Flood batted. In many cities, Black players couldn’t stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as their teammates.įlood used his anger at that bigotry to fuel his performance on the field. During his playing days in the minors and majors, Flood, like other Black ballplayers, faced racist taunts from fans and ostracism from some teammates. He told the crowd of 3,800 that he felt a personal responsibility to fight racial injustice. In February 1962, at Robinson’s invitation, the 24-year-old Flood traveled to Jackson, Miss., to speak at a rally organized by NAACP leader Medgar Evers. For Curt, players’ rights and civil rights were part of the same idea.” He was particularly interested in the fact that SAG members had their own agents and lawyers, could negotiate with film studios over salaries, and could move to different studios-all things prohibited in Major League Baseball at the time.įlood, whose first season in the majors was a year after the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, “was one of the first ballplayers to get involved with the civil rights movement,” said Pace Flood. “On our first date, over dinner in 1964, he quizzed me about the Screen Actors Guild,” recalled his widow, Judy Pace Flood, who was a well-known actress during the ’60s and ’70s. Every professional athlete owes Flood a debt of gratitude, but the billionaires who run Major League Baseball and the Hall of Fame aren’t fans of Flood, whose outlook and activism were shaped by both the labor and civil rights movements.Įven before the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) had any influence, Flood was an eager trade unionist. An outstanding hitter and outfielder during the 1950s and ’60s, he sacrificed his career to challenge the control of baseball’s corporate plutocracy over players’ lives and livelihoods. “It’s such a shame that he’s not given his contribution to the betterment of the sport.Curt Flood belongs in baseball’s Hall of Fame. Like many others who bucked the system and sacrificed their careers to make their sport better for those who would come later, Flood should be better recognized, said his son. To be frank about it, they were in the owners’ pocket.” Snyder added, “You had a lot of White sportswriters and columnists who were unsympathetic. Smith said the reporters at the time opposed Flood’s actions. “Of all the people that we know, Curt was the ideal player who could do what it required… who would give up a salary of $90,000 to $100,000,” added McCarver. “Curt made it perfectly clear that he was going to do it by himself,” said McCarver, who admitted that he wished he would have spoken out more back then in support of Flood. Save for a few-namely former players Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenburg and former owner Bill Veeck, who testified on his behalf-Flood stood alone in his fight. He said, ‘Don’t let them put the genie back in the bottle,’ and I never forgot how he delivered in that moment.” “I had the great honor of being there when Curt Flood came to speak to the players. He, along with Flood’s teammate Tim McCarver, MLB journalist and Hall-of-Famer Claire Smith, former baseball player David Cone, and Flood’s son Curt Flood, Jr., discussed the late major leaguer’s impact on the game.Ĭone recalled when Flood, nearly three years before his death due to cancer at age 59, spoke to players on solidarity as they prepared to strike. 16 Shirley Povich virtual Symposium, that current MLBer Gerrit Cole publicly thanked Flood when he signed a big deal with the New York Yankees.įlood sparked “an economic revolution,” said Georgetown Law School Professor Brad Snyder. But Merrill College Journalism Professor and veteran journalist Kevin Blackistone pointed out, as moderator of the Nov. The repeated narrative for decades is that today’s major leaguers don’t know, or care, or respect, or recognize who Flood was and what he did, journalist David Steele recently tweeted. Three years later in 1975, the reserve clause was struck down and MLB and the players union agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement that introduced free agency in 1976. Supreme Court in 1972, and the Court ruled 5-3 in favor of MLB.
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