Curt flood free possible other12/30/2023 The top players are multi-millionaires many times over. Today most baseball players who last just a few years in the league can retire as millionaires. Miller said, “I told him yes, and those to come.”Īnd it did. Flood asked Miller if he continued the fight would it benefit other players. Marvin Miller told him he didn’t have a chance to win his lawsuit and even if he won he’d never get a job in baseball again. But he sacrificed that for something he believed in strongly. Had he not refused the trade to Philadelphia he may have had four or five good years left. It has now been 50 years, a half-century, since Curt Flood took the field for the last time. It’ll be another five years if he doesn’t get on the ballot and is not elected until it comes up again.” As his son, Curt, Jr., told Ken Davidoff, “The timing could not be any better. There will be just 10 candidates chosen and if Flood makes it to the ballot he’ll need 12 of the 16 total votes to be elected. This time it’s the Golden Era Committee that is voting. Flood, unfortunately, died in January of 1997 at the age of 59, but his widow and son are taking up the fight, which many in baseball feel is a worthy one. He was finally voted in last year by the Modern Baseball Era Committee, eight years after his death in 2012 at the age of 95.īut what about Curt Flood? Last week I saw a story by Ken Davidoff in the New York Post that detailed a #FloodTheHall movement to hopefully help get Flood inducted for the sacrifice he made that eventually led to the dissolution of the reserve clause and free agency. Many felt that Marvin Miller, the father of free agency, belonged in the Hall years ago, some calling it a disgrace that he wasn’t. But when it comes to anyone who bucked the game, who went against the owners to help the players, well that’s another story. Even former commissioner Bud Selig was voted in despite the fact that he turned a blind eye on steroid-fueled players because he felt home runs were bringing fans back after the disastrous strike of 1994. But it also includes those who have contributed to the game in other ways, including writers and executives. The Hall of Fame, obviously, is essentially for baseball’s best players, though there’s always a debate about who belongs and who doesn’t. Today, Flood is somewhat a forgotten figure in that fight. But what his refusal to be traded did was put the wheels in motion which eventually led to the advent of free agency in 1976 with Marvin Miller leading the fight. He took the legal route and the case went all the way to the Supreme Court where he technically lost. Of course, he couldn’t return to the Cards, so his career effectively ended at age 31 if you don’t count a 40-game attempt at a comeback with Washington in 1971. “I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.”įlood held his ground and the trade was made without him. In a move that shocked everyone, the reluctant centerfielder said, flat out, that he wouldn’t go. Thanks to the reserve clause at that time, players had no choice when they were dealt. One of the players being sent to Philly was Curt Flood. In October they pulled the trigger on a seven-man trade with the Philadelphia Phillies. Those controlling the ball club felt the great run that began in 1964 was coming to an end and decide to do some rebuilding. 285, the team dropped to fourth place with an 87-75 record. Then after the 1969 season, when Flood hit a solid. He rarely missed games and was just 30 years old, having joined the Cards in 1958 at the age of 20 following cups of coffee with Cincinnati the two previous seasons. 301, while playing his usual stellar defense. In those two regular seasons, Flood continued to be a star with batting averages of. The Cards won the World Series over the Boston Red Sox in 1967, then were upset the next year by the Detroit Tigers. It was Curt Flood who opened the proverbial can of worms that eventually led to the abolition of the reserve clause and free agency for baseball players.
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