What Every Baseball Fan Should Know: The
Curt Flood Case Part 1 (of 4)
by Jonathan Leshanski
May 28, 2003
In a nutshell: Curt Flood one of
the finest centerfielders of his day took baseball to court and sued them
for unfair labor practices. He lost the case and at a huge price, it cost
him his career and more. However it opened the door to the modern era
of free agency, yet few people understand just what happened.
If you were to ask most of today’s baseball players about
who Curt Flood was or what he did for them you’d more than likely
get a blank stare, although, it is possible that a few of them may be
able to tell you that he was a baseball player. The same would probably
hold true if you posed the question to most fans. Ironically, what most
of these baseball players and enthusiasts do not know is that Curt Flood
may have had more influence on modern baseball than any other individual.
So who was Curt Flood? And how did he influence the game as profoundly
as he did?
In order to answer these questions it is necessary to look at baseball’s
labor relations for well over a century and maybe even to reminisce about
the good old days in baseball. Prior to free agency, which really started
in 1975, all baseball players were bound by a clause in their contract
known as the “reserve” clause. This clause was created in 1876
by William A. Hulbert, an owner who made his money in coal. Like other
robber barons of industry at the time, he wanted to assure that the power
rested with the management and not the players.
The reserve clause essentially stated that the teams had the right to
renew a player’s contract following each season. In this way all
rights to a player’s contract belonged to the team and a player could
never escape from that club or seek competing bids from other teams. Players
were not even able to invalidate a contract by sitting out for a year
and then returning to the game. In essence, the club could buy, sell or
trade a player via his contract as if the player were livestock.
The combination of the owners’ reserve system, which prevented players
from earning their market value, and a salary cap that was being pushed
by Albert Spalding, caused the players to create baseball’s first
union. The Brotherhood of Professional Base Ball Players (BPBBP) was founded
with the goal of fighting back against the greedy owners and the reserve
clause. Their fight was unsuccessful and within a very short time they
abandoned their cause and yielded to the owners. Though there were no
official terms of surrender, the writing was on the wall, or perhaps the
contract, and the reserve clause became a part of the game of baseball.
The reign of the reserve clause continued for almost another 100 years
and was challenged in court several times. In 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court
heard the case of Federal Baseball Club of Baltimore, Inc. V. National
League of Professional Baseball Clubs, which challenged the clause as
monopolistic and in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. The court
decided unanimously against the club from Baltimore and for the National
League. In his written decision, Chief Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes noted
that Baseball failed to meet the definition of interstate commerce - despite
the transport of players across state lines, which he called “mere
incident” to business conducted in individual baseball parks.
In 1946 another player challenged this clause, not by choice, but because
he had defied the clause and jumped contract with the New York Giants
to play in the Mexican League. The Mexican League did not survive long
and owners of the Major League teams punished those players who had “jumped”
leagues by blacklisting them for 5 years. The effected players took the
owners to court and behind a ballplayer named Danny Gardella, who had
never actually signed a major league contract, they sued for damages and
free agency. The owners reacted and by using the buzzwords of the day
they tainted the players that were suing, calling their demands “communistic.”
Few words were more powerful in post WW II America and the pressures against
the players began to multiply. With both the owners and the media leaning
against him Gardella accepted a settlement, as did many of the other players,
and the case was dropped.
Not long afterwards a career minor leaguer named George Toolson brought
suit against the New York Yankees, believing that the reserve clause kept
him from being picked up by another team and playing in the major leagues.
This case was also heard by the U.S. Supreme Court (this time in 1953).
The court once again ruled that baseball did not constitute interstate
commerce, even though television and radio signals, not just players crossed
state lines. In a split decision the appeal was rejected and the courts
said that it was up to Congress to modify or overturn baseball’s
antitrust exemption.
However while players seethed at the reserve contract, they did it in
silence as further insult upon insult piled up. Baseball grew tremendously
in the 1950’s and early 1960’s and large streams of new revenue
came in, not only at the gate, but from television and radio as well.
But the players’ salaries did not grow. Most players still worked
secondary jobs in order to survive and the owners put the extra revenue
into their own pockets. Players were not represented by agents, but instead
were told, how much the team would pay them. They had little choice but
to accept the offer or hold out and risk not playing at all. The fans
did not understand this and those who held out often became pariahs.
In 1966 things came to a head. Together Dodgers star pitchers Don Drysdale
and Sandy Koufax approached owner Walter O’Malley with the plan of
negotiating for a fairer amount of money. They also intended to use agents
to handle the negotiations. O’Malley’s reaction was an uproar
and he would have none of it. In the end Koufax and Drysdale felt that
they had no other choice but to sign for a lot less money than they had
wanted and without the representation of agents.
Along with the failure of owners to live up to commitments to pay agreed
upon moneys into a players pension plan, the players decided that they
had enough. The call was made to form a union but unlike previous unions
this one needed to have teeth. Finally they found a leader in the Chief
Economic Advisor to the United Steelworkers of America - Marvin Miller.
Miller was more than battle tested and had fought for the rights of steelworkers.
According to Curt Flood “The moment we found out that the owners
did not want Marvin Miller, he was our guy.”
The players now needed someone to challenge the owners and the reserve
clause. It was set to be a nasty battle since the myth of baseball was
firmly entrenched and the owners and the media would be a nightmare to
deal with, putting pressure on the players to back down. Whoever it was,
would be challenging not just the owners, but their created myth about
the “good of the game” and the perception that a player lucky
enough to be able to play the game needed to protect that game - even
if it meant accepting the reserve clause and a lower salary. Baseball
was waiting for a player to become the great emancipator of all players,
black and white. They waited for 4 additional years for that man to come
forward. His name was Curt Flood.
****In part II we will discuss who Curt Flood
was, and discuss how he found himself in a position which ultimately changed
the game of baseball.****
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