If Curt Flood had not existed, not even Marvin Miller could have invented him.
Who Curtis Charles Flood was and precisely his significance in baseball history is something that can't be understood just by looking at the record book. Not that Flood suffers from such an examination. He played 15 years from 1956 to 1971. (He took the 1970 season off, which is something I'll discuss in a moment.) He batted .293, was a three-time All-Star, and, playing centerfield for the St. Louis Cardinals, won Gold Glove seven consecutive seasons, from 1963-1969. He was on three pennant-winning teams with the Cardinals and earned two World Series rings. But it's what Curt Flood didn't do in 1969 that helped change the game forever: He did not accept a trade.
At the end of the 1969 season, the Cardinals traded him, along with Tim McCarver, Byron Browne, and Joe Hoerner, to the Phillies for Dick Allen, Jerry Johnson, and Cookie Rojas. But this trade was turned out to be different from all other trades before or since: This time, one of the two principal stars—most baseball writers regarded it mainly as a swap of Flood for Allen—refused to go.
Not only did Flood refuse to go, but he went to his personal lawyer and then to Marvin Miller, founder and executive director of the Players Association, and told them he wanted to sue Major League Baseball. The decision sent shock waves not only through baseball but ultimately through all professional sports. Those waves reverberate even to this day. And though he was aware that it would cost him dearly, he never wavered.
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