sweaver's Full Review: Brad Snyder - A Well-paid Slave: Curt Flood's Figh...
The reserve clause. It was a given in the game of baseball, had existed since the game's 19th century roots, shortly after a viable league had been created. The clause bound a player to a team for perpetuity, unless that team decided to trade or sell that player. And, if he was traded or sold, he had to play for that new team, or give up the game.
This was the world Curt Flood inhabited as an All-Star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. After the 1969 season, having past his 30th birthday and with his skills beginning to decline, he was traded to Philadelphia as part of a deal for Dick Allen, a big star at the time. Flood, who had played in St. Louis for 10 seasons, made a home there, and put down roots in business interests, did not want to move. Flood told people that he had no intention of going to Philadelphia, which he believed was a racist city.
His choices were to go move, or to quit playing baseball. At his annual salary of $90,000, quite a sum at the time, to quit would be an expensive decision, especially since even though he had side business interests, they were nowhere near as lucrative, and inevitably tied to his status as an athlete. Flood, however, did not want to move. Therefore, rather than accept the trade, or simply retire from the game, he decided to challenge the very reserve clause that had governed the game for nearly 100 years. And he followed that court case all the way to the Supreme Court.
This is the story spun by Brad Snyder, lawyer and baseball writer. Flood v. Kuhn is perhaps the most famous court case ever to take place within baseball history, and is regarded as a milestone in the game and the march toward free agency, even though the case itself was ultimately a failure. Snyder takes what is at its heart a story of legal procedures, and makes it into a fascinating tale of a place and time, and a very flawed man fighting a system that he finds abhorrent. As always, the system fights back.
Snyder grew up a baseball fan, worked as a baseball writer, went to law school and practiced for awhile, but decided he like writing about baseball better. His previous book, Beyond the Shadow of the Senators, was a well-researched history of the Negro League team the Homestead Grays, and baseball before integration. Here, he tackles similar themes, about race and baseball and how institutions approached such things in the recent history of America. It makes for must reading.
Snyder creates full portraits of people within this book. Flood himself, the ostensible hero, is a very flawed man, given to affairs and alcoholism, and depressed by his decision to give up the game he loves to fight for a principle. Flood's stand very nearly ruins him. He was warned of the dangers by Players' Association director Marvin Miller, who is eager for the chance to legally challenge the reserve clause, but mindful of the toll it will exact on Flood, even more than Flood himself. Miller is thrilled to get retired Supreme Court justice Arthur Goldberg as lead counsel for the case, knowing this will give Flood's case legitimacy and recognition, but Goldberg's distractions due to his political aspirations become a drag on the legal fight. All the while, few around baseball are willing to step up and support Flood, afraid of being blackballed by the game themselves.
This is a book that could only have been written by someone who is both a baseball fan and a lawyer. Snyder has a love of the game and a knowledge of its history, and also the know-how of the legal ins and outs involved, plus the background of the Supreme Court that led to its 4-4 decision against Flood: a tie, in this case, does not uphold the plaintiff.
Snyder writes of how the Court got to the place where it made the decision it did, how the judges negotiated back and forth about the decision, how the arguments affected the justices, and in what way recent Nixon appointments changed the makeup of the Court: two years earlier, during the Johnson administration, the decision might have been different. Snyder explains all this and other legal wrangling, in a way that can be understood by the layman; at least, the layman who has watched Law & Order.
Snyder paints a vivid picture of Flood's life, of race relations as the 1960s became the 1970s, of the fight in baseball for free agency, and of the American legal system. It is a long book, covering a lot of ground, but never boring. If you have interest in the topics of baseball, race relations in America, or legal matters, you will enjoy this book.
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