![]() ![]() Rejecting the trade, Flood instead approached Marvin Miller and the players’ union, which agreed to support him in a lawsuit against Major League Baseball.įor more information about Curt Flood’s life and career, see the following resources: Society Resources He had put down roots in the city, and his growing social conscience would not let him accept being forced to leave it for a place he had not chosen. Flood had been traded once before, but he had changed in the twelve years since he first came to St. His troubles grew after the 1969 season when, having worn out his welcome with Busch, he was traded along with three other Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies. One of his biographers later offered evidence that the portrait business was a fraud-paintings that Flood claimed to have made himself may actually have been the work of another artist. He was now divorced from Beverly, and in following his love for art, Flood had started an off-season portrait painting business and a photography studio that were both losing money. Off the field, he was burdened by growing problems in his private life. Under Miller’s guidance, the players’ union began to win more of its battles with team owners, but conflict grew between the two sides.įlood had a solid season in 1969, winning his seventh Gold Glove, but at thirty-one he had reached an age when many players’ physical abilities soon start to fade. ![]() Seeking a stronger leader for their union, the Major League Baseball Players Association, the players hired Marvin Miller, a lawyer with years of experience leading the United Steelworkers in labor disputes, in 1966. While the sport thrived, the typical player’s salary was not keeping pace with team owners’ profits. The decade’s winds of change swept even into the slow-moving culture of professional baseball. He fought a personal battle against racism two years later when he and his wife, Beverly, met opposition in integrating a northern California suburb, Alamo, where the Floods wanted to live in the off-season. With other black athletes, he spoke at an NAACP civil rights conference in Mississippi in 1962. Their closeness may have helped them finish ahead of other teams that did not have the same kind of unity within their clubhouses.įlood’s civic conscience grew alongside his career during the political and social unrest of the stormy 1960s. Flood, they said, was one of the Cardinals who did the most to ensure that the team’s players, whether white, African American, or Latino, got along well together. Other Cardinals credited him with being a model teammate, and he was named a team co-captain starting in 1966. 300 and became known as perhaps the best defensive center fielder in baseball. ![]() Listed at just five feet, nine inches tall and 165 pounds, he did not hit many home runs, but he regularly batted over. Flood was at his peak as a player in these years. ![]()
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