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Pace also recalled Flood being buoyed by the support he’d received during the trial from teammates Lou Brock, Dal Maxvill and Bob Gibson, and from other players, like Richie Allen, from around baseball.
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He would say, ‘the anxiety is worse than being in the World Series because at least you know what you’re up against in the World Series.” “ was in a state of absolute nerves and jitters. He used to say, ‘This is worth more than $100,000 a year’ – which was about the amount of salary he was forfeiting.” “It was a devastating situation for Curt, but he knew in his heart that he had to do go through with it,” she said. This is what Judy Pace Flood, Curt’s widow, said just last year: And anyone who supports you brings comfort to the bosom of your love and manna for the soul…and some additional strength to keep finding the courage of your convictions. When you fight for a cause, you can feel so alone. But it was the more intimate help that resonates the most. How much did Cosell influence the eventual removal of the reserve clause? I don’t know. Flood’s cause became his cause, even to the point of testifying against baseball at the trial. Still, Flood’s overall point is incredibly valid, which was evident to Cosell. I cannot and will not demean these people and their terrible plight with facile comparisons by any person, no matter the righteousness of the cause.
Most of them are female and brown, and they don’t have choices.
I won’t belabor the point, but it is essential to make.Īnd that is because there were then and there are still now real slaves. He married who he would and lived wherever he could afford. I understand that he is engaging in the verbiage of his opponents and of the time, but there is too vital of a difference: Slaves don’t have choices.įlood chose to bring the lawsuit and had career opportunities inside and out of baseball. While the difference for the life of the player with and without free agency is tangentially related, the statement is not. In fairness, I must push back against the slavery characterization. When Howard Cosell asked him how someone earning $90,000 a year, one of the top salaries in the game at the time, could feel like a slave, he responded, “A well-paid slave is nonetheless a slave.” A Course Correction Most sportswriters at the time attacked his assertion that the reserve clause made him feel like a slave. However, that did nothing to reduce his ardor in this cause.
This was at a time when Cosell was only tangentially associated with the great game, although he had started his career with a tape recorder at Mets’ Spring Training roughly a decade earlier. For his sacrifice and courage, Flood is apparently the hero of this story.īut he found an ally in Howard Cosell, and that a powerful one.
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