The Courage of Curt Flood

Every ring has a story to tell, but the one that will be auctioned off in Louisville, Kentucky, tomorrow is more significant than most. It's a 1964 World Series ring that once belonged to Curt Flood. From 1963-1969, Flood won seven consecutive gold gloves as the center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. He left the game with a lifetime batting average of .293. But he's best remembered today as the man who sacrificed his career to challenge major league baseball's reserve clause.

It was 40 years ago last month that Flood learned that he had been traded with teammates Tim McCarver, Byron Browne and Joe Hoerner to the Philadelphia Phillies. Unlike those men and scores of others who had gone before him, however, Curt Flood refused to pack his bags. Instead he wrote a letter to commissioner Bowie Kuhn asking to be declared a free agent and when Kuhn refused, Flood took major league baseball to court. It was a courageous stand that cost him what remained of his career—he played only 13 more games (for the Washington Senators in 1971)—and soon left him bankrupt. He ultimately fled to the Spanish island of Majorca where he played guitar and painted portraits.

On June 19, 1972, the Supreme Court voted 5-3 in favor of major league baseball, thus ending Flood's challenge. But his peers in the game, encouraged by what they had seen and heard, soon took up the fight. In 1974, Catfish Hunter was awarded free agency by an arbitrator due to a contract violation by Oakland A's owner Charles Finley. And one year later, Andy Messersmith of the Dodgers challenged the reserve clause by playing out his option year without signing a new contract. Retired pitcher Dave McNally joined him in the cause. Both were granted free agency by arbitrator Peter Seitz.

When Flood left the game in 1971, the Senators had agreed to pay him $110,000 for the season. The average player was earning less than half that. As George Vecsey writes in Baseball: A History of America's Favorite Game, baseball paychecks increased by leaps and bounds in the wake of Flood's stand: "The average salary kept jumping from $51,000 in 1976 to $371,000 in 1985 and $489,000 in 1989 and $880,000 in 1991." When Flood died of throat cancer in 1997, the average major league ball player could expect to earn $1.3 million—all thanks to free agency. And, with little reason to worry about paying the electric bills, players were free to obsess about championship rings.

The ring Curt Flood won in 1964 is expected to fetch at least $15,000 at auction. The copy of the famed 1972 Supreme Court decision that he signed? Well, that should sell for a mere $500-$700.