Fellow Players Were His Biggest Fans

One of the gospel songs they sang at Curt Flood’s funeral Monday was “The Wind Beneath My Wings.”

The symbolism was obvious to the dozens of old major league ballplayers who gathered at First African Methodist Episcopal Church in Los Angeles to pay their respects not only to the man but to the principle he stood up for.

Flood, who unsuccessfully challenged major league baseball’s hold on its players in the late 1960s, was remembered as the wind that allowed succeeding generations of ballplayers to soar to new heights of freedom and money. His demand that he play in the city of his choice set in motion the then-revolutionary concept of free agency.

That he sacrificed the end of his career made him not merely a hero, but a martyr.

“He was a man who dared to live by the strength of his conviction,” said one of his contemporaries, former Dodger Maury Wills. “Most of us were not courageous enough to take that stand [challenging the owners]. I know I wasn’t.”

Wills and other old-timers--Bob Gibson, Joe Morgan, Lee Maye, Al Downing--listened as the Rev. Jesse Jackson called for Flood to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame and as columnist and baseball enthusiast George Will compared him to civil rights figure Rosa Parks.

By afternoon’s end, the point had been driven home by virtually everyone who paid tribute: Curt Flood, a black man who began playing ball in an era of segregation, was that rare athlete who left a social legacy and a lesson.

Flood, who died Jan. 21 of throat cancer at 59, lived in Los Angeles and operated a youth foundation. He played his baseball in St. Louis, becoming baseball’s best center fielder and a three-time All-Star in the 1960s. In 1969 he balked when the Cardinals traded him to the Philadelphia Phillies. Baseball’s reserve clause--which gave teams total control over a player’s destiny once it signed him--gave Flood no options. So he sued.

“He led at a time before he had any followers,” said David M. Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Assn. “He believed something was wrong and was willing to fight, and he persisted knowing and watching his career dry up.”

Flood’s contention that he had earned the right to be treated as more than a piece of property resonated strongly with the primarily black mourners Monday. Most of the players who attended were African American, and most of them had come of age during the civil rights movement.

“Curt Flood was never a trophy for the game,” eulogist Jackson said. “He hung in there. He finished his way.”

Flood refused to report to the Phillies, sitting out the 1970 season, effectively ending his career at age 32 as he took on the reserve clause in court. His case went all the way to the Supreme Court, which sided with baseball’s owners in 1972, citing the game’s exemption from federal antitrust laws.

Within three years, however, the system crumbled and an arbitrator granted two other major leaguers, Dave McNally and Andy Messersmith, free agency.

Jazz singer Oscar Brown Jr. put it this way when he sang a composition called “Curt’s 9th Inning”:

And on entering the bank

All free agents should thank

Curt Flood for the foundation he laid

But anyone who expected to see a slew of baseball’s younger multimillionaires paying their respects Monday would have been disappointed. Overwhelmingly, those who came were men whose careers spanned the 1960s and ‘70s, members of the first generation to take advantage of free agency.

The young players “are not aware of his accomplishments. They’ve come up during a time when they did not have to struggle,” said Morgan, who played for the Astros, Reds and Giants.

Will suggested to the mourners that Flood’s unsuccessful court challenge “wasn’t the first time the Supreme Court had blundered” in a case from St. Louis. He reminded them that the high court’s Dred Scott decision--in which the court denied a slave’s claim that he had become free simply by crossing into a Northern state--had come from the same city.

Will drew laughter and applause when he reflected upon Flood’s talents as an outfielder: “Two-thirds of the Earth is covered by water, and the rest was covered by Curt Flood.”

Hall of Fame pitcher Gibson, Flood’s Cardinal teammate, told the mourners a story that illustrated the pressures under which blacks once played, and how Flood coped with them.

The two had gone to breakfast at a restaurant in St. Louis, where they were told they could order but not eat. They got up and left. In the clubhouse, Gibson said, Flood jokingly relayed the story to teammates by telling them that the waitress had yelled to the cook, “Ham and eggs to go!”

Gibson said Flood suffered his last few days, but that he continued to fight.

“He was the kind of man who never gave up, he only gave out,” Gibson said.

“He was a man of dignity,” said former Dodger Steve Garvey. “We all owe a great debt to this man.”

Another former player, Tito Fuentes, was crying as mourners passed by the casket.

“He was a great man,” Fuentes said. “I’m sorry that so many of the young players who made millions, who benefited from his fight, are not here. They should be here.”

Maury Wills said Flood would not have felt betrayed.

“He held no bitterness toward baseball,” he said. “His life was a victory.”