- 2 days ago
Attempted to break down the tradition of the MLB doing whatever they want to players
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
IG: aj_mckenzie416
Twitter: AJMckenzie94847
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00:00It didn't matter if you were too young to drink professional baseball, you had to sign a piece of paper
00:06that allowed one team to own your services for the rest of your career, unless that team traded, sold, or
00:12waived you.
00:12If you didn't like the way the team paid or treated you, you were warned to keep it to yourself.
00:18And most did.
00:20Then one day, one man said, no more.
00:24His name was Kurt Flood.
00:30Where it is, Charles William?
00:32December 24th, 1969.
00:35Dear Mr. Kim, after 12 years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of
00:42property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.
00:47I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with
00:57the laws of the United States.
01:01It is my desire to play baseball in 1970, and I am Kate Wayne.
01:07I have received a contract from the Philadelphia Club, but I believe I have the right to consider offers from
01:14other clubs before making any decisions.
01:16I therefore request you make known to all major league clubs my feelings in this matter and advise them of
01:25my availability for the 1970s season.
01:32Signed, Kurt Flood.
01:37Kurt Flood shocked the baseball establishment.
01:41I mean, he took it by the ears and shook it.
01:44When he appealed to me to stop the assignment of his contract for Philadelphia, I said, no way I can
01:51or would.
01:51Commissioner Kuhn professed not to see the relevance of his statement that he is not a piece of property to
01:57be bought and sold, because this had been going on, said Kuhn, for years and years and years.
02:05This is the system.
02:06You have to live within that system.
02:07I also does, and you do, too.
02:09The contract assignment is valid.
02:11Three weeks after Flood's historic letter to the committee filed suit against Major League Baseball, contending the sport with violating
02:19a loss, the reaction among the players was mixed.
02:23Most ballplayers of that mind at that time...
02:27I was shocked.
02:29I was in the trade.
02:31Kurt, you really want to do this?
02:33Do you know what you're doing?
02:36You may never be allowed back into baseball.
02:38You sure you want to do this?
02:40The Phillies were offering, Kurt, $110,000.
02:44It was an enormous sum of money in 1970.
02:47Enormous sum of money.
02:48I was upset because I thought it could hurt the game.
02:52I told him I'd be, good thing, 100%, but I'd be back a few hundred paces just in case some
02:57of the fallout would hit him.
02:58I didn't want to hit me, too.
03:00With the exception of Kurt Flood and maybe one or two others, every major star was totally in the pocket
03:06of the owners.
03:08It was not just the players who criticized him.
03:11Once a favorite of the press, he was now in its crosshairs.
03:15When we brought the suit, there were an awful lot of sports writers who thought of it as a kind
03:20of outrageous act.
03:22He was viewed as a fascist, a terrorist.
03:25Fascist?
03:26This would bring conservative press.
03:29He could have thought maybe he had gone around and killed babies or something.
03:32The reaction was so violent.
03:34The other charge, somehow, it wasn't here.
03:38Time and time again, he was portrayed as a pawn of Marvin Miller.
03:43Flood couldn't have thought of this on his own.
03:46In the return of the sport of the 19th century, every time an athlete challenges the game,
03:53the sporting press fell to the occasion and supported the owners blindly.
03:58With sports writers and stars in their corner,
04:01football mavens locked arms and in a single voice.
04:04We're out of it.
04:05Make any changes.
04:07The game will be destroyed if there is no reserve clause.
04:09This will be the worst thing that ever happened.
04:11We're all going broke.
04:12We're doing this just out of sportsmanship for the better.
04:28It's against the best interest of
04:31Anti-American
04:35Baseball, that it was communistic
04:38When you
04:49Professional baseball player, you knew what the rules were.
04:53And if you weren't happy with the reserve clause when you signed
04:59What is the reserve clause?
05:01Your first contract, then don't sign it.
05:04You know, go do something else for a living.
05:06What?
05:14Didn't the owners under
05:15So total
05:20Lack of imagination
05:21That they could function any other way
05:33Refusal to change
05:35The
05:39Baseball establishment
05:41Fairly believed
05:42It would weather this
05:43Most recent assault
05:47On the reserve clause
05:56I think the public thought
05:58Kurt Flood
05:59Was insane
06:04I've heard of him as somebody
06:05Defusing a trade
06:06And someone who would go to court over it
06:08But we had dinner with
06:10Marvin Miller
06:11And Dick Moss
06:12Marvin Miller was
06:14As up front
06:15And direct with
06:16Kurt Flood
06:16As
06:20Anybody could have been
06:21The bottom line was
06:22We're going to lose
06:24And I wanted him to know that
06:26Flood
06:33Elected to stay the course
06:34Despite strong suspicions
06:36That
06:53Right
06:57Settle
07:03Kurt Flood
07:04In 1930
07:05Kurt was two
07:07His family moved
07:10Very dedicated father
07:11And a very dedicated mom
07:13They always had at least
07:14Two or three jobs
07:15Each
07:16Constantly working
07:17Confined and making
07:18That family
07:19Was a very artistic
07:20Intellectual family
07:21And always
07:22Met the challenge
07:23In terms of integrity
07:24They got to know his mom
07:26Very well
07:26Laura
07:27And a very active person
07:28She had a restaurant
07:30At one time
07:31She had one seat
07:32At the restaurant
07:33And everybody in the neighborhood
07:34Knew that
07:35If you didn't have any money
07:36That day
07:37And you came and you sat in there
07:39You could eat for free
07:41Judy Pace
07:42What?
07:43She's 58 right here
07:45She looks really good
07:47While they're
07:48While they're
07:48Around the clock
07:49The six children
07:50Lived a latchkey existence
07:52Kirk formed a strong attachment
07:54To an older brother
07:57There were some
07:59Other lifestyles
08:00That existed
08:01And Carl got into that
08:02And couldn't get out
08:03Carl
08:05Has stole a truck
08:06From the sodas company
08:07He went to
08:09Juvenile detention
08:11And Kirk
08:12Wound about it
08:13So he stole a
08:17He stole a truck
08:21And he was
08:22Only nine or ten years old
08:24The security guard
08:25Caught him
08:26And then they
08:27Took him down
08:28To the detention
08:29To spend the night
08:30His father was just so hurt
08:31His mother was just disgusted
08:34And from that day on
08:35Kirk said
08:36I never want to be
08:36In trouble again
08:38Kirk started to play baseball
08:40On the sandlots
08:41Of West Oakland
08:42At nine
08:43He caught the eye
08:44Of George Pulse
08:45A well-known local coach
08:48He helped a lot
08:49Of the youngsters
08:50In Oakland, California
08:52Because the area
08:53We were in
08:54It was a very
08:54Line between
08:57Okay
08:58And going the wrong way
08:59The man was a genius
09:00The man was ahead
09:01Of his time
09:01And he knew talent
09:03And he knew how
09:04To work with talent
09:04He was a good communicator
09:06And he was a father figure
09:08And a mentor
09:08To the kids in there
09:09I to this day
09:11Give him credit
09:11For my career
09:12In baseball
09:14Frank Robinson
09:15And Bill Russell
09:17Beta Pence
09:17Kurt Flood
09:19He had an end points
09:20On all of us
09:21That were there
09:22But he just took
09:23A liking to Kurt
09:24Of all the kids
09:25That made it
09:26To the big leagues
09:27Kurt was probably
09:28His favorite
09:28He brought him up
09:29To the Legion team
09:30And made him
09:31A bad boy
09:32And then when
09:33A batty friend
09:34Had to hit
09:35That bump on
09:36He could run
09:36He could do it all
09:39Out every kid
09:40In his neighborhood
09:40And caught
09:41Per June
09:42Chocolate League
09:43He would make plays
09:44I mean
09:45Stand and shake
09:46You
09:46Everybody in the stands
09:47Would just rave
09:48About this little kid
09:50Everybody just knew
09:52It would be something
09:52Show
09:53When the 5'7
09:54114
09:55Wasn't patrolling
09:56Center field
09:57For Oakland
09:58Technical High School
09:59Flood pursued
10:00Artistic interests
10:02Very serious
10:03Munded
10:05Very quiet
10:06A lot of us
10:07When we were playing
10:07We'd go out
10:08And mess around
10:09And do things
10:10But Kurt
10:11He would go back
10:12To the room
10:13He would
10:14Write poetry
10:15He would work on
10:19These big banners
10:21That were hung
10:22In the hallway
10:23Preceding each assembly
10:26Kurt's the kind of kid
10:27That could grow
10:28The way he's
10:28Visitive
10:29Intelligent
10:30You'd be happy
10:30To take him home
10:33But Flood's days
10:35In West Oakland
10:36Were soon to end
10:37Ahead of him
10:38Into the heart of America
10:39Aim for his athletic talent
10:40And suffering
10:41For his belief
10:42In the rights of men
10:46After graduating
10:47Find a $4,000
10:55Contract with Cincinnati
10:57And reported to its
10:58Class B team
10:59In High Point North
11:18Severe sense of dislocation
11:23Well
11:23He had to find out
11:27Eventually
11:30In hotels
11:31With your
11:35On the road
11:36Your teammates
11:36Would have to bring
11:37Food out
11:43Out to you
11:44Cole
11:45In the club
11:48Incredible
11:49Incredible
11:51And that's
11:52Where he had
11:56To dress
11:57The more they
12:04Treated him in such
12:06A disrespectful way
12:07The harder he played
12:14Stuffing the pain
12:15Stuffing the pain
12:16The 18-year-old
12:16Hit 29 homers
12:26And led the Carolina league
12:28With a 340 batting average
12:30Carolina league
12:31Like a
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14:25to sustain himself under all kinds of pressure.
14:33Another guy born south or south way up.
14:40After a second season in the minors,
14:43the buzz was that Flood would soon join neighborhood friends Frank Robinson
14:47and Veda Pinson in the Reds outfield.
14:49But Cincinnati management had other ideas.
14:52They didn't want too many black players.
14:54Because they had the potential of having an all African-American outfield,
14:58they weren't ready for that yet.
15:00And that was a quote on a lot of ball clubs.
15:03If you saw a few in spring training in the major league camp,
15:06there's more than four, you'd say, someone's got to go.
15:08Bernie Tevis, who's our manager there, thought he was too small.
15:12So that winter, why, we traded him St. Louis for two pitches.
15:17They never did turn out good.
15:19He says, oh, goodness, here I go.
15:21I'm going to St. Louis, that city where Dred Scott ruling came down.
15:26I was trying to do anything I could to get completely out of the South.
15:29But you were the team one or two years.
15:31Dude.
15:34Kurt Flood did understand that Cincinnati was right next to Kentucky.
15:42And though it was geographically higher than St. Louis,
15:48St. Louis is next to Illinois.
15:51Cincinnati was culturally more Southern, more racist, more sensitive than St. Louis was.
15:59And is.
16:04St. Louis is the Cardinals rookie center fielder in 1950.
16:34St. Louis is the Cardinals rookie center fielder in 1958.
16:35Flood faced a.
16:39This time.
16:43However, he wasn't alone.
16:46Solly Hemis was named manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
16:52And Hemis did not think very much of Gibson as a pitcher.
16:57What?
16:58And he took Bill White, who was one of the finest first basemen in the game,
17:03and played him in the outfield.
17:05And he did not think very much of Kurt Flood as an outfielder.
17:10And so for that entire season, those three guys are looking at each other.
17:14They know the talent that they have.
17:17And they're wondering, why are we being treated this way?
17:22In the middle of the 1961 season, Hemis was replaced by Johnny Keene.
17:28Flood, meanwhile, had broken out as a hitter.
17:32His batting average soaring 85 points above the previous year.
17:36The lessons of a former teammate, George Crowe, had begun to pay off.
18:05He turned himself from an adequate major league hitter into a very good one.
18:12From 1961 through 68, Flood hit over 300 six times.
18:19Wow.
18:25Kirk Flood was a better ball player than they gave him credit for, I thought.
18:33He knew how to play.
18:34He knew how to win.
18:35He knew what he had to do on the ball field.
18:39He'd do whatever he had to do to get on base to start a rally.
18:44He was really a professional.
18:46He never made any mistakes.
18:47When you needed something done, bun a guy over, hit the ball to the right side.
18:51He always did it.
18:53He'd take a pitch.
18:54He'd take two pitches if he had to to get Brock in scoring position.
19:19I mean, Kirk Flood batted over 300 the last 10 seasons of his career.
19:24So, he had to have been pretty good.
19:28I ate to St. Louis after the 67 season.
19:32Johnny said, have you ever heard anybody genuinely pull for their teammates,
19:37even if he's 0 for 4 like Kirk Flood?
19:39And here I'd played with Kirk for six years.
19:42And I said, you know what?
19:45No.
19:46When you talk about teammates, Kirk have to rate it number one.
19:58Many of the problems that we may have had.
20:00Real extrovert.
20:01Love to have fun.
20:02Love to laugh.
20:03Always joking.
20:04Getting on people.
20:05Writing guys.
20:06If you made a mistake the day before, he'd be the first one to start the writing.
20:09And then, of course, everybody joined in.
20:11He had a way of saying things that made you chuckle.
20:16But if you thought about them a little bit, they were to the point.
20:18A lot of players back then were aloof to rookies.
20:22But Kirk was always willing to talk to you, try to help you.
20:27Players know.
20:29They know.
20:29That's how it should be, because everyone was a rookie once.
20:34When it's phony.
20:35And the one thing about Kirk, he was never phony.
20:40In 1964, Flood amassed 211 hits and earned his second gold glove,
20:46as the Cardinals won their first World Series since 1946,
20:50beating the Yankees in seven games.
20:53Gibson delivers.
20:54Flung on.
20:55Popped off.
20:56Next to the second base.
20:58Going for it.
20:59Makes the chance.
21:00The Cardinals win it.
21:01And this ballpark completes bedlock.
21:04But for Flood, the victory celebration was swallowed whole by an incident that occurred outside his house in California.
21:12Most of us lived in the inner city area at the time.
21:16Curtis, he moved to one of the suburban areas called Alamo.
21:24They burned a cross on his lawn.
21:28The notoriety that's undoubtedly going to be involved here will make people aware of nothing else that's prejudice
21:38is not only confined to the southern part of our United States.
21:41And if they move their mustache and look under their nose, it's finally right here at home, too.
21:46And it's unfortunate, but it's certainly the truth.
21:49We weren't wanted.
21:50We had to have the U.S., the marshals, escort us into the house.
21:55It was very hard.
21:57I knew he was very upset about it, and that sometimes he was actually scared.
22:02Flood returned to St. Louis, leaving his wife and children in California.
22:06He and Beverly would later divorce.
22:09I think for my father and my mother as well, they wanted to be away from the hustle and the
22:14bustle.
22:15A place where my father could really get into his art and be alone.
22:20There was so much commotion going around us, even in the home, that was rather difficult.
22:26In 1967, Flood's career-best .335 average propelled the Cardinals to their second world championship.
22:35Winning his fifth straight gold glove, Flood was among the best center fielders of his era.
22:40The first time I saw Kirk Flood, and I hit a ball in the right center field gap.
22:44I'm hauling around first base just to know I had a triple.
22:48That guy looked up, and he's trotting in with the ball.
22:51Gibson said, talking about Kirk Flood's catches, it's like standing on the corner watching the girls go by.
22:58The last one is always the prettiest.
23:02He made a play at Wrigley Field one day when he used the vines for leverage.
23:07Had the ball been three feet over the stands, you would have sworn that he would have gotten the ball.
23:13I still don't know how he did it.
23:14He was just spectacular.
23:16The irony, of course, being the thing we remember him most for is a misjudged line ball.
23:21It was game seven of the 68 World Series.
23:24With runners on first and second in the seventh inning of the scoreless game, Detroit's Jim Northrup stepped in against
23:31Bob Gibson.
23:35Fly ball, Flood.
23:37Oh, he almost lost.
23:38He misjudged it over his head.
23:40He stopped short and actually kicks up a bit of the turf and heads back as fast as he can.
23:46And it's over, and Jim Northrup has a triple.
23:50Flood's misplay led to three runs.
23:52Detroit went on to win the series.
23:56After the game, Flood was just, you know, devastated that he had misplayed that fly ball that he had put
24:03in his back pocket hundreds of times.
24:05And he told Gibson that it was his fault he lost the game.
24:10Off the field, Flood was changing with the times.
24:13The 31-year-old star was among the first players to articulate a new spirit of independence.
24:19We offered, uh, Kirk Flood a contract for $90,000.
24:23He said he wanted $100,000.
24:27I'm gonna ruffle some feathers.
24:29Some of the feathers that you ruffle may be the owners that pay your salary.
24:34Gussie Bush didn't like players who were uppity.
24:40Didn't like, uh, anybody who rocked the boat.
24:45And Flood was one of those guys who rocked the boat.
24:48He went from a guy that was Gussie Bush's personal favorite to, to a guy that got the owner kind
24:56of unhappy with him.
25:00Flood settled for $92,000.
25:02And in 1969, his average dropped under $300,000 as the Cardinals finished in fourth place.
25:09But Flood's life away from the field continued to be rewarding.
25:14He had the Kirk Flood portrait and photography studio that was doing well.
25:20He was well thought of.
25:21He had been the man of the year for St. Louis.
25:24A wonderful life.
25:25He was approached by people for autographs and he was always accommodating, never rejecting, always with a smile on his
25:32face.
25:33The organization, Aunts and Uncles, was very, very close to Kirk's heart.
25:37They made sure kids had shoes.
25:40Shoes to go to school.
25:42Shoes to protect themselves in the wintertime.
25:45He said a new pair of shoes can change a child's outlook on the whole world.
25:49He was at the height of his game.
25:52One of the highest paid players in the game.
25:55He really literally had everything.
25:58All he lacked was freedom in the industry where he made his living.
26:02And to Kirkland, that was labor.
26:08In our national history, and acquiring the elementary right to negotiate terms of employment with the employer of your choice
26:15is not radical.
26:18Kirk saw the total picture.
26:19He understood the economics of the game.
26:21He understood the manipulation of the players.
26:23The ultimate manipulation of Kirk Flood began in October of 1969 when he was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies as
26:31part of a seven-player deal.
26:34He was devastated.
26:36That's all I can say.
26:38He was devastated.
26:40I saw Kirk the day after he first received a phone call about being traded.
26:46And he was as dejected, upset, angry as I had seen him under any circumstances.
26:54And he had made up his mind before I saw him that he wasn't going to Philadelphia.
27:00One could sympathize with him emotionally.
27:05He apparently liked being in St. Louis.
27:07He didn't want to be in Philadelphia.
27:08Primary in his mind was not being traded.
27:12If worse comes to worse and I have to go, I don't want to go to Philadelphia.
27:17Flood was a very articulate, sensitive black man who was being traded to a city that traditionally was inhospitable to
27:24black players.
27:25It was, after all, the last National League team to sign a black player ten whole years after Jackie Robinson
27:32was signed by the Dodgers.
27:33Like so many family-based ownerships, the Carpenter family was, without a doubt, steeped in this plantation mentality.
27:44I think Bob Housen sent me to Philly as punishment because nobody wanted to play in Philly now.
27:50Had he been traded to the Dodgers, it may have been a different scenario.
27:53But he wasn't. He was traded to Philadelphia again, a hotbed of racism.
27:58I disagree vehemently with that.
28:01I hunted Flood down after it became apparent that he wasn't coming.
28:05And asked him, was Philadelphia's reputation a huge factor in your decision?
28:10He said, no.
28:11He genuinely felt, as a professional baseball player, that he should have the right to seek his own employment with
28:19whatever team that wanted his services.
28:22He was truly offended by the whole idea that players were property.
28:28It's been written, Kurt, that you're a man who makes $90,000 a year, which isn't exactly slave wages, what
28:34you were taught to that.
28:35A well-paid slave is nonetheless a slave.
28:38It was a system of economic slavery.
28:42And if you were a black person, you were probably much more sensitized to that relationship.
28:48This is 1969.
28:50We had just endured 10 of the most tumultuous years as African Americans since slavery.
28:55People were dying in jungles in Vietnam.
28:57People were being hosed down in the streets.
28:59And here he was living in a penthouse in St. Louis, playing for a majorly professional baseball team.
29:05This was an opportunity for him to make an impact and to make a significant impact.
29:12The times were singing to many of the people.
29:16The more you knew, the more you had to stand in it.
29:19White ball players, something like that would happen.
29:21They'd feel frustrated or angry.
29:22But it wasn't a reminder of what had been done to their grandparents and great-grandparents.
29:28But with someone as proud as Kurt Flood, it hit the nerve, and he was willing to act upon it.
29:34He was inspired by the Martin Luther King's, by Malcolm Elks.
29:40And he said, you know, this is where I have to make my stand.
29:44One of the things I said to Kurt was, if by some miracle I'm wrong and the Supreme Court reverses
29:50itself,
29:51you're not going to win.
29:53And Kurt, through his everlasting credit, said it would benefit all other players and future players.
30:01And I said, yes.
30:04And he said, that's good enough for me.
30:11The trial of Kurt Flood versus Major League Baseball began on May 19, 1970, in a New York federal district
30:18court.
30:19The weight of history was against him.
30:23Kurt Flood was up against, first of all, Oliver Wendell Holmes.
30:27In 1922, the Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Justice Holmes, ruled that baseball was not subject to the
30:34antitrust laws.
30:35Our argument was that the Supreme Court had made it clear.
30:40The law had changed, and there was no reason why this anomaly of the baseball exception should be continued.
30:50Especially since every other major sport in the country was subject to the antitrust laws.
30:54We had to get Holmes overturned.
30:57Well, getting Holmes overturned is like getting the greatest deity you can imagine overturned,
31:03because he was and is venerated as a great, great jurist.
31:08To diminish the ghost of Holmes, some of baseball's most respected elder statesmen testified on Flood's behalf.
31:15Among them, the brilliant Maverick owner, Bill Beck, the legendary home run hitter, Hank Greenberg,
31:21and the man who changed the color of the game over two decades earlier.
31:26When Jackie came Robinson to that court, his whole room, he heard a pin drop.
31:35His presence was overwhelming, because he was Jackie Robinson.
31:41Over the years, there had been hearings in Congress.
31:44We're known as the seller here at Mason Baseball.
31:47And Jackie had, in the 50s, testified when he was here.
31:52Under instructions from the owners, but nevertheless, he had testified that the reserve clause was absolutely necessary,
32:00that baseball couldn't do without it.
32:01Jackie's response was that I was very young then, and I had learned a lot playing baseball, and I was
32:07wrong.
32:07And I'm now much older, and hopefully not as foolish.
32:12Tears came to his eyes.
32:15He said it was a very moving moment for him, to see that his childhood hero was there for him.
32:24...of the past, yes, but not one active player found his way to that courtroom in lower Manhattan.
32:31The Henry Aaron's, the Stardews, all these guys, the Frank Robeson's.
32:35Where was these guys?
32:37Where were they?
32:39Just one of them kind of stepped up and said,
32:42Hey, what he's doing is right.
32:44He wondered what difference it would have made.
32:47And it hurt him.
32:49But these guys, I ain't messing up my 80,000.
32:54I'm not jeopardizing my family.
32:56I still had a few more years that I wanted to play without having the ownership of baseball and not
33:00be happy with me.
33:02So I probably wouldn't have had enough courage to do that.
33:04But the reason nobody backed Kurt up is because he was more or less expelled, blackballed from baseball, and it
33:12would have happened to anybody else, too.
33:13You mean to tell me baseball wouldn't have stopped and listened, that they would have got together collectively?
33:19No way in the world baseball would have stopped and took notice.
33:21But as the trial dragged on week after week, the ground upon which Flood stood alone began to erode.
33:29I spent enough time with him and had enough meals and lunches and dinners and so on to realize that
33:35he was drinking more and more.
33:38He was constantly being sought after by reporters.
33:45He was constantly under financial pressure.
33:48The photography business was not supporting him.
33:51There was nothing good happening in his life.
33:53On August 1st, Justice Irving Ben Cooper upheld baseball's antitrust exemption, thus preserving its prerogative to conduct business as it
34:03had for almost a century.
34:05His nerves frazzled, Flood fled to Denmark.
34:10He was just cooling out and doing some artwork.
34:16One of the things that he remarked about the Danes was that they were colorblind and that they didn't look
34:22on him as being any different from anybody else, which was an experience that was new to him.
34:27He could sit down and have a meal without someone bothering him, so he was anonymous there.
34:33But after a year away from the game, Flood was ready to play again.
34:38His body was calling for him to be back out on the field, doing what he'd always done.
34:43Kurt was expressing an interest in playing and talking about financial difficulty.
34:47He had already skipped one season.
34:50I don't think he wanted to skip a second one without at least giving it a try.
34:55Bob Short, owner of the Washington Senators, negotiated a trade with the Phillies to get Flood.
35:00And in 1971, the former Cardinal star reported for duty under manager Ted Williams.
35:07Ted gave him a hard time.
35:09He could come to spring training.
35:10He was ready to play.
35:11It was just Ted's attitude.
35:13I had a lot harder time than I thought he would.
35:15I think probably harder than he thought.
35:17He still caught the ball as well as he ever did.
35:19He didn't get along with Ted.
35:20We finally had a little talk to him.
35:22We told him for four or five days we were going to count.
35:26100 after 13 games, Flood faced something even more unnerving than the wrath of Ted Williams.
35:34There was a letter in his locker, in the clubhouse, threatening his life.
35:41It said, dear nigger, you're a dead nigger.
35:44Now, how did it get in there, and who put it there?
35:49But I still don't think that's the reason he left.
35:51I think he only left because of the way Ted treated him.
35:54Ted just, Ted did not give him the respect that he deserved.
35:57In a telegram to his teammates, Flood said, I tried.
36:02A year and a half is too much.
36:04Very serious personal problems mounting every day.
36:08Thank you for your confidence and understanding.
36:12And somebody said, anybody seen Kurt Flood?
36:14And somebody said, he's on an airplane right now to go someplace out of the country.
36:19He left everything.
36:20He left his family, his teammates.
36:23No one knew where he was for a while.
36:25Painting, drinking, and trying to forget, Flood waited for news of his appeal on the Spanish Mediterranean island, Mallorca.
36:33There, he managed a cafe where a primary topic of conversation was boxing.
36:40The bar was there for the guys who were in the Navy.
36:44Howard Cosell would make sure Kurt had all the tapes within two days or a day after a fight.
36:51So his bar was like a magnet.
36:53In June of 1970, Marvin Miller, the Supreme Court ruled 5-3 against Flood's appeal.
37:02Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion.
37:07He was disappointed by the result, of course, but he was also disappointed by the opinion.
37:11I never saw a decision in the Supreme Court, which started out with literally several pages of nothing but baseball
37:20players' names.
37:21I always have thought of it as Harry Blackmun's great mistake.
37:25He was a ball fan, loved Mallard, Willie Mays.
37:30Can't fault him for that, but you can wonder how he made so egregious a mistake.
37:40It took him a decade to recover emotionally, inside, and to get past the pain.
37:53What that lawsuit did was make everybody aware, and I mean everybody, not just the players, but the public as
38:01well,
38:02make them aware of how unfair the system was.
38:06What the Flood lawsuit demonstrated, unfortunately, was you're not going to get redress on a major item like this from
38:15the courts.
38:17But by creating the trial, Flood pushed baseball into positions that then it could not defend at the bargaining table.
38:27In negotiations with the owners, Miller won a new collective bargaining agreement,
38:32which ultimately opened the way for free agency in 1976.
38:39Financially and spiritually broken.
38:42I met the plane that he came in on, and he brought all of his possessions back in a little
38:52overnight day.
38:53And I didn't even know where to start to try to help him.
38:57He didn't have a job. He didn't have anything.
38:59That's when we knew about the alcohol. It was one big mess.
39:04We got to Kurt to say, you still got a lot of living to do.
39:09Your life is not over, and what you've done has not been in vain.
39:13Well, no, he doesn't have that much sleep.
39:15So you need to crawl out of that bottle, get your life together, and move on.
39:20I had stopped drinking, and he was on the same road, and he commended me, and told me then that
39:26that's the road he was taking, and he regrouped himself.
39:30He never went through any rehabilitation. He didn't attend AA classes. It was self-willed.
39:39As Flood moved away from alcohol in 1978, he looked for a job in baseball.
39:45His sin against baseball in their eyes was so egregious that he didn't have to be told that he wasn't
39:52going to get anything in baseball, and they didn't have to tell one another.
39:55Don't hire ingrates, and clearly Flood was at the top of the list of the ingrates.
40:01The one guy who tried to give Kurt Flood a break was Charlie Finley, who was one of Bowie Kuhn's
40:08great adversaries.
40:10Hired him as a broadcaster.
40:14I don't think Charles Finley had a bone of support for Kurt Flood in his body.
40:19I just think he said, okay, let's put him on the broadcast team, and that'll really hurt him.
40:25After a season in the A's broadcast booth, Flood turned to card shows, old-timers games, and teaching baseball on
40:32the West Oakland sandlots of his youth.
40:35To this day, people that have seen me on the street that were able to be coached by him said,
40:40in their whole life, the greatest highlight was to be able to play ball at 16 and have Kurt Flood,
40:46not only as a teacher of baseball, but taught me things about life.
40:50I was so happy to see Kurt, and the same Kurt Flood, you know, same smile, making jokes.
40:59August Bush, the old man, came up here looking.
41:03I wish we had listened to you. You were right. You would have saved us a lot of money.
41:08Incredible.
41:10That made him feel good.
41:12Flood received further comfort from actress Judy Pace, with whom he had a relationship before he left the country in
41:181970.
41:20They married in 1986.
41:24I feel like I was such a blessed person to have him come back into my life and into my
41:29children's life.
41:31Kurt was clean and sober. He was happy.
41:33He wanted us to understand that you can control whatever you want to do, you can change whatever you want
41:39in life.
41:40Peace, joy, and happiness finally have come to Kurt.
41:45In December 1994, Flood found time for a cause close to his heart.
41:51Kurt Flood came to Atlanta during the strike and addressed about a hundred players.
41:56And when he walked home, there was a thunderous standing ovation for him.
41:59He wanted to speak to the players about the importance of their sticking together and the importance of what they
42:05were fighting for.
42:06He had a real soft kind of endearing voice, but you could hear a pin drop.
42:10When he spoke, it was not only eloquent, but really with the passion of the commitment that he had made
42:18and what other players had done.
42:19His message was simple. He said, don't let him put the genie back in the bottle.
42:23To me, that just sort of signified that the battle for players was always about rights.
42:26It made us stronger. I think the guys were able to take that and pass it on to the other
42:30players and use it to our advantage.
42:32With baseball and alcoholism long relegated to his past, Flood faced his last major battle in 1996.
42:41We were in New York together at a meeting, and he was complaining of a sore throat.
42:47He had throat cancer.
42:51I remember writing a column about that and talking to him.
42:55And even then, in interviewing him, I didn't feel any fear.
43:00Kurt had this rule, don't let anyone in my room who's coming in here weeping and crying.
43:07I have no time for that.
43:08If they come in here with lifted spirits and we all enjoy each other while I'm still here, if they're
43:12going to cry, take them out.
43:15On January 20th, 1997, the man who had sacrificed his career for the rights of baseball players was gone at
43:2359.
43:26Kurt Flood died late this afternoon in Los Angeles after a lengthy bout with throat cancer.
43:32He was a very, very intelligent man.
43:36When his story was told initially by the baseball establishment, they tried to paint Kurt as some bitter figure in
43:44the history of baseball that didn't want to be traded for selfish reasons and nothing could be further.
43:51They've made a lot of people rich.
43:53Have they made more people richer than Kurt Flood?
43:56I don't think so.
43:58There's a lot of millionaires in Silicon Valley.
44:01There's a lot more millionaires that have passed through the clubhouses of baseball.
44:06And it's all because of Kurt Flood.
44:09Because he put all that money in their pockets, he sacrificed the end of his career.
44:13And the best line I've ever heard on that was,
44:16Joe Torre, when Flood died, I called Torre on the phone and he called Flood to Joan of Arc of
44:22baseball.
44:24The man who was burned at the stake.
44:32Like his idol, Jackie Robinson, Kurt Flood lived to see the changes wrought by his courageous stance.
44:39And like Robinson, he died before his time.
44:42But if history celebrates the man who led his race across the color line,
44:46it all but ignores the one who set all players free.
44:50More than the millions that have since rained down on some with half his ability,
44:55Flood's obscurity may well be his ultimate sacrifice.
44:59For ESPN Classics SportsCentury, I'm Chris Fowler.
45:21To, keep going.
45:27Not search for survival.
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