- #Curt flood made agency pro professional#
- #Curt flood made agency pro series#
- #Curt flood made agency pro free#
But no modern athlete framed the issue as starkly.ĬURT FLOOD: A master and slave relationship.ĪRCHIVAL (ABC, “WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS” 1-3-70): NARRATION: Men before Flood had fought baseball’s reserve clause. REPORTER: This is Curt Flood, baseball’s Bolshevik. JUDY FLOOD: Curt would say we have been subsidizing the owners we just can’t even go out and find out, what am I really valued at? What do I need to be paid if I’m getting seven consecutive Gold Gloves? What is my value? They couldn’t relate to a guy making $90,000 a year who is rejecting a trade from one team to another. And a lot of sportswriters were buying the line. Decades of rulings had exempted it from antitrust laws, giving it a special legal status that protected it from competition.īRAD SNYDER: The line from the owners when Curt sued, was Curt Flood is trying to destroy Major League Baseball.
#Curt flood made agency pro professional#
As the country’s first professional team sport, the courts had chosen to view baseball as a game instead of a business. NARRATION: For the right to determine his own future as a ballplayer, Flood would have to sue Major League Baseball, and cut to the core of how America’s pastime operated.
#Curt flood made agency pro free#
These things have an effect on people.ĬURT FLOOD: What I really want out of this thing is to give every ballplayer the chance to be a human being and take advantage of the fact that we live in a free and democratic society. RICHARD MOSS: After one of his first games the players threw their uniforms in a pile the clubhouse man came over and he took a broomstick and he picked up Curt’s uniform. JUDY FLOOD: He saw these two water fountains: one said “colored,” one said “white.” He said, “For some strange reason, I thought maybe club soda and cola?” And he said he soon realized, no, this is not club soda. NARRATION: Though Flood had grown up on the West Coast, distanced from the civil rights issues roiling the American South, that had all changed when he was sent to the Southern minor leagues at the beginning of his professional career. This just is not my America.” Curt was very much aware of what was going on in the world, and he was very much aware of the fact that he did not have his civil rights.ĬURT FLOOD: Me as a black man, I’m probably a lot more sensitive to the rights of other people because I have been denied these rights. JUDY FLOOD: So, it wasn’t anger, it was more, “This is not right. Even when the player’s yearly contract was up, the owner could unilaterally renew his contract – essentially binding him to the same franchise for life, allowing him to be paid whatever the owner felt he was worth, or traded on a whim. NARRATION: Since the early days of professional baseball, a short clause, inserted into every major league contract, had given owners complete control over their players. And he just didn’t think it was right that he had no say in where he would play. Louis, he liked playing for the Cardinals. RICHARD MOSS (GENERAL COUNSEL, MLB PLAYERS ASSOCIATION, 1966-77): He liked St. NARRATION: He demanded a raise months after slipping on a key play in game 7 of the 1968 World Series. NARRATION: Despite his stardom on and off the field, the Cardinals had begun to sour on Flood.įly ball, Flood…Oh he misjudged it, over his head! They’re the new world champions.īRAD SNYDER: Curt’s the longest standing member on the team.
#Curt flood made agency pro series#
Louis Cardinals to three World Series in the previous six years. Few ballplayers ever become as successful and popular as Curt Flood, who was known to fans as a prolific hitter and defensive wizard, streaking across the outfield to snare fly ball after fly ball.
Curt gets a call in the morning from not the general manager, not the owner, Gussie Busch, but some middle manager in the front office calls him and in sort of a monotone voice says, “Curt, you and Tim McCarver have been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. OSCAR ROBERTSON: Curt Flood’s legacy is he gave his life for a lot of baseball players who don’t even know who he is.īRAD SNYDER: It’s October 8, 1969. JUDY FLOOD (CURT FLOOD’S WIDOW): Curt helped to change the way they do business in the world of sports. NARRATION: The drama of modern free agency has become as much a part of professional sports as the games themselves. MARK CUBAN: If I had to do it all over again, would I quarantine him?
MARC SPEARS: It’s a monster that doesn’t die.ĪNCHOR: One of the most unprecedented about-faces we’ve ever seen. ROBERT BURTON: Free agent center DeAndre Jordan may be reconsidering. MARC SPEARS (NBA WRITER, YAHOO! SPORTS): Free agency is a crazy game now.
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