After the Philadelphia Flood
Curt Flood with the St. Louis Cardinals
This particular deal takes place 54 years ago today – exactly one year and 27 days after the trade that sends center fielder Curt Flood from St. Louis to Philadelphia after the 1969 season.
And the deal that takes place 54 years ago today comes exactly one year, 27 days and, oh, a few seconds after Flood tells the Phillies that, um, he absolutely wants no part of the trade that sends first baseman Dick Allen, second baseman Cookie Rojas and pitcher Jerry Johnson to the Cardinals in exchange for catcher Tim McCarver, relief pitcher Joe Hoerner, outfielder Byron Browne, and the aforementioned and most definitely disgruntled Flood.
Flood, then 31, says he has too many business and personal ties to St. Louis, and does not want to leave them behind just to play for a non-contending team in Philadelphia.
Nor does Flood believe he should be compelled to do so, telling as much in December 1969 in a letter of protest to commissioner Bowie Kuhn.
Curt Flood’s letter to Bowie Kuhn in 1969
So, Flood turns down a proposed pay raise from the Phillies for the 1970 season, never reports to the team and ends up filing a $4.1 million antitrust lawsuit against Major League Baseball, asking to overturn game’s “reserve clause” that ties a player to his team for as long as the team wants.
“I’m a human being,” Flood says at the time. “I’m not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.”
While the lawsuit works its way through the court system – eventually to be heard before the United States Supreme Court – Flood sits out the 1970 season.
Turns out that Flood beats his lawsuit in getting to Washington and the Supreme Court as the Phillies trade his rights 54 years ago today to the Senators for first baseman Greg Goossen, outfielder Gene Martin and pitcher Jeff Terpko.
Don’t know them?
Don’t worry. No one else does in Philadelphia as none of the three ever plays a game for the Phillies.
As for Flood, he barely plays for Washington in 1971.
Sitting out the entire 1970 season costs Flood – by then an old 33 – his once-sharp skills as the three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner with the Cardinals stumbles through 13 games with the 1971 Senators.
Curt Flood in 1971, his final season
After hitting .200 over just 40 plate appearances, Flood decides to leave the game and move overseas.
Flood’s lawsuit against Major League Baseball eventually reaches the Supreme Court, which in 1972 – 14 months after Flood’s final game – rejects his case by a 5-3 decision and denies Flood the free agency he once, but no longer, seeks.
While he loses his case against Major League Baseball, Flood’s stance eventually leads to the modern-day free agency that brings billions of dollars to players eligible to change teams.
The average salary for a major leaguer in Flood’s last full season of 1969 is $24,909.
That average jumps to $1.3 million at the time of Flood’s death in 1997 and then to $5 million in time for the 2024 season.
Flood’s career, the sacrifice he makes of it on principle and the aftermath of that sacrifice should be required reading by every player today.
“(Flood’s) challenging the reserve clause was essential to the blossoming sport we have today,” pitcher Gerrit Cole says in 2019 after signing a nine-year, $324 million free agent contract with the New York Yankees.
“I just think it’s so important that players know the other sacrifices that players made in order to keep the integrity of the game where it is, and so I hope everybody has that conversation about Curt Flood.”