A Well-Paid Slave

by Brad Snyder

  Miller believed that Flood’s lawsuit had facilitated the owners’ acceptance of an independent arbitrator. Before the union’s December 1969 meeting in Puerto Rico, the owners had rejected the idea. Six months later, on the eve of Flood’s trial, the owners agreed to the new grievance procedure as part of the 1970 Basic Agreement, which ran for three years. Flood’s lawsuit had removed the critical obstacle to the agreement—the reserve clause—from the bargaining table. The lawsuit also struck the fear of God in the owners that they were going to lose their antitrust exemption. In the past, Miller said, the owners had argued that they could self-regulate their business and therefore avoid government intervention. With Flood’s lawsuit challenging their autonomy, the owners granted the players a right enjoyed in every other industry by allowingthem to have their grievances decided by a neutral party. It turned out to be a costly concession.

  The power of an independent arbitrator was illustrated in the case of 1974 American League Cy Young Award winner Catfish Hunter. After the 1974 season, Hunter filed a grievance claiming that A’s owner Charlie Finley had reneged on a portion of his contract by refusing to set up a $50,000 annuity in the pitcher’s name. The independent arbitrator, Peter Seitz, ruled that Finley had breached Hunter’s contract and declared the A’s ace pitcher a free agent. After the ruling, teams flocked to Hunter’s native North Carolina and began a bidding war for his services. Hunter eventually agreed to a five-year, $3.5 million contract to pitch for the New York Yankees. Hunter’s contract opened other players’ eyes to what free agency could do for them.

  Miller’s ultimate goal was to use independent grievance arbitration to test the meaning of the language in the reserve clause, paragraph 10(a) of the Uniform Player Contract. Paragraph 10(a) said that if a player refused to sign his contract, “the Club shall have the right . . . to renew the contract for the period of one year.” Read literally, the reserve clause was a one-year option on, not lifetime ownership of, a player’s services. In 1967, a California judge interpreted similar language in the NBA contract of forward Rick Barry as a one-year option. Miller believed that an independent arbitrator would say the same thing about paragraph 10(a). He just needed the right test case.

  Major league players began testing the meaning of paragraph 10(a) by refusing to sign new contracts and forcing the owners to exercise the renewal provision. The players were essentially working under their previous season’s salaries but without signed contracts as they attempted to break the cycle of perpetual options on their services. Nervous about retaining their unsigned players, major league teams tried desperately to sign them to new contracts during the season. The St. Louis Cardinals’ young catcher, Ted Simmons, played without a signed contract until July 1972, when he signed a two-year deal worth $75,000. Six players began the 1974 season without signed contracts, but only two made it to the end. Yankees reliever Sparky Lyle pitched without a new contract until the last day of the season and pitched well, earning a retroactive salary of $87,500 for 1974 and $92,500 for 1975. San Diego Padres outfielder Bobby Tolan, another former Cardinals teammate of Flood’s, played the entire 1974 season without a contract, receiving a retroactive raise to nearly $100,000 for 1974 and a similar amount for 1975.

  In 1975, Los Angeles Dodgers ace Andy Messersmith became the first player to play an entire season without a signed contract and to challenge the meaning of paragraph 10(a) before an independent arbitrator. When the Dodgers refused to give Messersmith a no-trade clause in his 1975 contract, the two-time 20-game winner refused to sign a new deal. He won 19 games that season with a 2.29 ERA. After the season, Messersmith rejected the Dodgers’ last-minute offer of $135,000 retroactively for 1975 and a combined salary of $320,000 for 1976 and 1977. Instead, Messersmith gambled that an arbitrator’s decision about paragraph 10(a) would make him a free agent.

  Montreal Expos pitcher Dave McNally joined Messersmith’s grievance. A four-time 20-game winner with the Baltimore Orioles, McNally had been traded to the Expos before the 1975 season. He could not come to terms with the Expos before the season and played for them without a signed contract until June 8, when the 32-year-old left-hander left the team. The next day, McNally announced his retirement; he planned to open a car dealership. Miller wanted another plaintiff in the case and asked McNally to join Messersmith’s challenge to paragraph 10(a). McNally agreed. In November, Expos president John McHale suddenly showed up in McNally’s hometown of Billings, Montana, to offer him a $25,000 bonus to go to spring training in 1976 and a $125,000 contract if McNally made the team. McNally turned down an easy $25,000, and, even though he had every intention of retiring, insisted on joining Messersmith’s grievance.

  The owners attacked Messersmith’s and McNally’s grievance on multiple fronts. They unsuccessfully tried to get a federal judge to declare that the reserve clause was outside the scope of the grievance procedure because both sides had agreed to set aside the reserve clause as part of the 1970 Basic Agreement. The owners’ biggest mistake was not exercising the right that either side had to fire arbitrator Peter Seitz, who had already ruled against them in the Hunter case. Once the arbitration had begun, the owners argued before Seitz that the reserve system consisted of not only paragraph 10(a) but also the Major League Rules—including Rule 3(a) requiring all players to sign the Uniform Player Contract containingthe reserve clause, Rule 3(g) against tampering with players under contract, and Rule 4-A about the reserve lists—all of which the players had agreed to obey as part of the Uniform Player Contract. The players simply argued that the reserve system came down to the meaning of paragraph 10(a). Seitz sided with the players, interpreting paragraph 10(a) to be a one-year option and declaring Messersmith and McNally free agents. Messersmith and McNally won the players what Flood had not: freedom. Emboldened by nearly 50 years of courtroom victories, the owners attempted the difficult task of persuading a federal judge to overturn an arbitrator’s binding decision. A Kansas City-based federal trial judge and a federal appeals court upheld Seitz’s ruling. As baseball’s second recent high-profile free agent, Messersmith signed a three-year no-trade contract with the Atlanta Braves worth $1 million. McNally, as he had originally intended, retired.

  The Messersmith-McNally decision gave Miller and the Players Association incredible leverage in the ongoing negotiations over the 1976 Basic Agreement. Miller recognized that making all the players immediately eligible for free agency would create an oversupply of free agents and depress the value of their services. Instead, the union negotiated a deal that allowed players to become free agents by continuing to play without signed contracts in 1976, or after their sixth year of major league service. In addition, players with five years of major league service could demand a trade. During the first offseason with multiple high-profile free agents, Reggie Jackson signed the largest free-agent contract by agreeing to a five-year deal worth $3 million with the Yankees.

  The gains from the Hunter and Messersmith decisions, according to Miller, could not have been achieved without Flood’s struggle and sacrifices. “I can’t help but think both Hunter and Messersmith/McNally had to, at the appropriate time, have been influenced by the courage of a Curt Flood,” Miller said. “As in any case of an advance that had to be fought for, the struggle of those who came before, including those who didn’t succeed, had to have an impact on those who later proved to be successful. In my gut, I feel there was a connection, but I can’t prove it.”

  Miller and Moss tried to educate the players about what Flood had started. In the spring of 1977, they traveled to all the teams’ spring training camps. They mentioned Flood’s name and told his story at practically every stop. Miller and Moss wanted the union to recognize Flood, but they wanted it to come from the players. The six years that Flood had been away from the game was a baseball lifetime. Many players did not even know who he was.

  Flood’s last few years in Europe had not been kind. The Spanish police, after seeing servicemen coming and going at all hours, closed his bar. Hav
ing lost his only source of income, he gave his World Series rings to a vacationing Texas couple as collateral for a “loan” of a few thousand dollars. Flood packed up his remaining baseball trophies and memorabilia, left some debts behind in Majorca, and sought refuge in Andorra, a tiny country perched in the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border, with Ann and her teenage son. After Curt and Ann parted ways, he found himself unable to rent an apartment in Andorra because he was black. The Andorran government refused to grant him a work permit. He performed odd jobs to survive, working for a time as a carpet installer and living in a single room above a British-owned pizzeria called Nelson’s Tavern. He drank there so frequently that his picture joined those of 40 regulars above the bar. Flood’s photo was the only one with a caption: “Super Hermit.” Drunk and destitute, Flood sometimes found shelter with friends. His possessions consisted of a dog, a scooter, and a small duffel bag of belongings. “He is said to often voice regret that he ever made his sensational stand and walked out of baseball and turned his back on America,” a Spanish correspondent informed Sports Illustrated in August 1975.

  On October 1, 1975, Flood was arrested outside a well-known Andorran department store. The police broke his left arm, accused him of theft, and threw him into jail. “There have been reports that he has drinking problems,” a cable sent from the American consulate in Barcelona to the State Department said. “He had no money when he was detained.” Two days later, the local judge decided not to charge Flood with theft because he “was drunk when he attempted to rob a department store” and “no merchandise was stolen.” That afternoon, the Andorran government put him on a bus to Barcelona.

  About 10 days later, Flood landed in a Barcelona psychiatric hospital and was treated for alcoholism. When the hospital discharged him at the end of October, he could not pay the $300 bill so the city of Barcelona picked up the tab. He wanted to go home to Oakland but could not afford the $330 flight from Barcelona to New York. The State Department requested financial assistance from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and contacted Flood’s family. In early November 1975, according to a State Department cable from Henry Kissinger, Flood’s father paid for Curt’s ticket to Oakland.

  Flood arrived at the Oakland airport with only a small duffel bag. He had nothing to show for his playing career. He was almost 38 years old and back at square one. He was not back on Helen Street in a West Oakland ghetto, but he returned home just as poor as he had left. His family and a few friends greeted him. He was a mess. Instead of getting help, he retreated into his own personal prison. He moved in with his 76-year-old mother, Laura, in one of three adjacent apartments that he had originally purchased for her and the rest of his family. She, too, had issues with alcohol and could not rehabilitate her youngest son. Curt’s half sister Rickie and his brother Carl lived in the other two apartments.

  Curt’s relationship with Carl had never recovered from his brother’s February 1969 attempted jewelry store robbery and shoot-out with police. Curt believed the resulting bad publicity was the reason the Cardinals had traded him. Carl’s crime had attracted the attention of both of the St. Louis daily newspapers. Carl had also stolen money and photographs from people who had prepaid for Flood to paint their portraits. During his prison sentence for the robbery, Carl worked as a part-time staff member for Missouri lieutenant governor William C. Phelps investigating prison-related complaints in an ombudsman program that Carl had devised. In 1974, he presented former Missouri governor Warren E. Hearnes with a portrait that Curt had supposedly painted in 1965. After more than six years in prison, Carl was released on parole in November 1975 and returned to Oakland. The following year, with the help of the local Legal Aid Society and ACLU chapter, Carl sued the Alameda County director of elections to regain his voting rights. He lost because he was on parole until 1982.

  Curt detested Carl’s presence in those apartments. Carl continued to run scams on his family. He acted like a bedridden invalid around his mother, Laura, so she would take care of him. Then, after she went to bed, he jumped into a waiting convertible to hit the town. In 1980, he wrote a poem about Willie McCovey and published it in the Oakland Tribune under Curt’s name.

  Curt could not evict Carl because the apartments in East Oakland no longer belonged to him. While Curt was in Spain, the IRS continued to pursue his back taxes—perhaps the unpaid withholding taxes from his photography business—and went after the apartments. He instructed Rickie, who had been keeping up the mortgage payments, to do anything to prevent their mother from being evicted. Rickie took title to the property and continued to pay the mortgage. Curt had been so poor while living in Spain that he had asked her to return his $10,000 down payment. She said she had sent him the money.

  Back in Oakland, Flood’s drinking continued unabated. He nearly died in June 1976 after fracturing his skull. His family says he fell from a ladder onto a concrete patio while trying to fix the antenna on the roof. He told a reporter that he fell down a flight of stairs. Others believed the fall was not accidental. He admitted to having “a couple of beers too many.” “They gave me a brain scan,” he said of his hospital stay, “and they found nothing.”

  This was the humorous yet proud public face Flood showed in September 1976 to the New York Times’s Murray Chass. Flood smoked cigarettes while discussing his lawsuit (it angered him that no active players had shown up at his trial); his life (he spent his days sitting around and doing nothing); and his desire to get back into baseball. “It’s a little difficult to find a job for a used center fielder,” he told Chass. “You can’t look in the want ads and find a job like that.”

  All the reporters who interviewed Flood at his mother’s apartment asked about his painting career. A portrait of his youngest daughter, Shelly, hung next to the door. Another of his young, beautiful mother adorned the wall over the couch. He parried any questions about making a living as a painter.

  Flood desperately wanted to get back into baseball. It was the only thing he knew how to do. Ideally, he wanted a six-week job as a spring training instructor. He hoped to teach young players what he knew about the game. He did not want the job given to several retired black players—first base coach. He refused to spend his life telling players: “Don’t get picked off.”

  Teams were not lining up for Flood’s services for a reason: He had sued them all in federal court. If there had been an enemies list in Major League Baseball, Flood would have been on it. Although he denied it at the time, he had been blacklisted. Flood tried to explain why he had sued baseball. “The things that I did, I did for me,” he said. “I did that because I thought they were right. I thought I should have some control over what happened to my life.”

  Flood did not begrudge the million-dollar contracts won by Hunter and Messersmith. He thought it was “cool” that “other people have benefited” from his lawsuit. “These guys are making more money and deservedly so. They’re the show. They’re it. They’re making money because they work hard. Don’t you tell me one minute that Catfish Hunter doesn’t work his butt off. I know he does and he’s the show.”

  The Messersmith-McNally decision, however, dredged up all the feelings of unfairness about how the Supreme Court had decided his case. “[T]here was no way a black man was going to win that suit,” Flood wrote in 1977. “Listen, it eventually took two white guys—Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally—to destroy the reserve clause. Their battles were appreciably the same as mine.” If only Flood had won his lawsuit, he might have been able to live in peace. His loss before the nation’s highest court gnawed at him.

  Flood healed some of his wounds with the help of a friend of his sister, Barbara. Karen Brecher, who had befriended Barbara at a previous job, worked as a supervisor for the Alameda County Welfare Department. Karen came from a middle-class white family. She and Curt started dating and lived together for six years. Flood often referred to her as his wife even though they never married. Curt and Karen joined a bowling league. He occasionally played with Kar
en’s son, Phil, on a slow-pitch softball team. They all lived together in Alameda and later moved to East Oakland not far from Flood’s family.

  Karen wrote to the Texas couple asking them to return Flood’s World Series rings. The couple said they never wanted the rings in the first place and returned them in the same cigar box in which Flood had given them away. The day the rings arrived in the mail, Flood cried. He thought he had lost them forever. Bob Feller, a vocal critic of Flood’s lawsuit, called the house and asked if Flood wanted to sell his World Series rings. Flood was not parting with them again. He was poor, but Karen could support him on her welfare supervisor’s salary.

  Flood missed baseball. He attended Oakland A’s games and often hung out with some of the players at an Alameda bar called the 19th Hole. A few players recognized him. Pitcher Mike Torrez, a former Cardinals teammate, gave him the gold chain from around his neck in appreciation for what Flood had done. Flood often kept score at home while watching games on television. There was only one baseball announcer whom he could not bear to watch—Joe Garagiola. Garagiola, who had testified against him at his trial, made Flood’s stomach churn.

  Flood raised his public profile and fattened his wallet with several media opportunities. He coauthored a first-person article about his life and lawsuit for the November 1977 issue of Sport magazine. Howard Cosell conducted another television interview with him on January 22, 1978, for ABC Sports Magazine. It was the weekend of Flood’s 40th birthday. Cosell flew Curt and Karen out to New York City, put them up at a fancy hotel, gave them theater tickets, and sent a limousine to take Flood to the studio. Nobody treated Flood more like a somebody than Cosell.

  Richard Reeves spent a night on Flood’s couch for a March 1978 Esquire profile titled “The Last Angry Men”—“a search for heroes—for men who stood up to the system.” Richard Carter, the collaborator on Flood’s book, tried to discourage Reeves from contacting Curt. “Maybe you should leave him alone,” Carter told Reeves. “Look, he took on something very big and it broke him.” Flood also begged Reeves not to come: