“In the history of man, there’s no other profession except slavery where one man is tied to one owner for the rest of his life,” Flood said then. Secondly, he viewed baseball’s old Reserve Clause, which bound a player to a team for as long as the team wished, as just a version of indentured servitude. He told MLB Players Association director Marvin Miller he didn’t care if suing baseball would end his career as long as it would ultimately benefit other players and those to come. First, like his hero Jackie Robinson, who famously broke baseball’s color line, Flood felt he’d found a noble mission he could champion. and Coolidge Ave., just off I-580, where a modest, rectangular sign tells all they’ve arrived at “Curt Flood Field,” a multi-purpose space used by high school and youth teams. The most tangible evidence of Flood’s impact in his hometown can be found at the corner of School St. Sadly, just as Flood feared, he may be a forgotten man today. 20, 1997 due to complications from throat cancer. It’s been nearly 25 years since Flood, the kid who grew from an Oakland playground legend into a three-time All-Star, two-time world champion and once-in-a-lifetime baseball pioneer, died in a Los Angeles hospital. ![]() He wondered if sabotaging his own baseball career to help other players win their freedom - in what he really saw as a civil rights issue - would just be a footnote in sports history. Click here for a look at what Tommie Smith and John Carlos - the enduring emblems of athlete protest - think about today’s movement.Ĭurt Flood, a complicated man with a convoluted legacy, spent the final years of his life consumed with fear he’d somehow be forgotten. ![]() GAME CHANGERS: This is the second in a series of stories chronicling the Bay Area’s rich history of sports figures fighting for equality.
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