A Well Paid Slave.

A Well Paid Slave By Brad Snyder

Reviewed by David Mandell

In 1969, Curt Flood had achieved the American dream. A star outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, he enjoyed the fame of a major league ballplayer and a $90,000 salary. Widely respected in St. Louis, Flood also ran a flourishing art business. Despite all this, one thing was lacking--his freedom. The Cardinals, like all major league clubs of the time, owned a player for his lifetime. Under baseball's reserve clause, a club could buy, trade, or sell a player as if he were a surplus box of bats. At the end of the 1969 season, the Cardinals traded Flood to Philadelphia. Flood refused to report to the Phillies and took his case all the way to the United States Supreme Court. Flood's struggle is the subject of Brad Snyder's illuminating new book, A Well Paid Slave.

Snyder, an attorney in Washington, D.C., traces Flood's unlikely path to the Supreme Court. Flood endured the worst indignities of segregation as he traveled through the minor league circuits. Many of his fellow players and sports reporters ridiculed Flood when he refused to go to Philadelphia, arguing that Flood would still be paid $90,000, a large sum for players of the era. But Flood turned the money down. A well paid slave, he said, is still a slave. Instead, Flood sued baseball, accusing it of violating antitrust laws.

Snyder points out that Flood faced a huge obstacle. The Supreme Court had ruled that baseball was exempt from antitrust laws, so Flood had to convince it to accept his case and reverse a 50-year-old precedent. With access to the surviving lawyers and the court records, Snyder reveals events that have never been reported throughout this uphill battle.

Flood needed the players' union to assist him because he could not afford the costs of antitrust litigation. The union agreed to back Flood, but at a price. Its leadership insisted on picking Flood's legal team, and as Snyder shows, this proved disastrous.

The full trial that followed took a toll on Flood. With little to do and without income he began drinking heavily. Although his fellow players would benefit from Flood's suit, none dared to testify for him. Instead, retired stars Jackie Robinson and Hank Greenberg spoke for him as well as pitcher turned author Jim Brosnan.

We like to believe that Supreme Court Justices follow honored points of law but Snyder reveals that when it came to baseball, the Justices were awestruck fans. According to Snyder, Justice Harry Blackmun was assigned the majority opinion in order to assure his vote for the owners. Blackmun, nominated to the court only after President Nixon's first two choices were rejected by the Senate, was initially regarded as an appendage of his fellow Minnesotan, Chief Justice Warren Burger. The "baseball case" would be his opportunity to escape Burger's shadow.

Blackmun spent hours with the Baseball Encyclopedia and other baseball books. With encouragement from his fellow Justices, he kept adding more baseball names to his draft and lost sight of the real person involved in the lawsuit. While Flood waited, Blackmun lost himself in baseball history. Snyder views Blackmun's opinion as a travesty. Blackmun seemed far more interested in demonstrating his baseball prowess than in addressing Flood's issues. Baseball's exemption from antitrust law was preserved and Flood had struck out.

Flood played a few weeks in a failed comeback with the Washington Senators but spent the rest of his life out of major league baseball. Although he failed in court, Flood's efforts ultimately won freedom for the players through arbitration.

A Well Paid Slave is a fascinating look at sport and law. Today's players take their fame and enormous fortune for granted. This book shows how they obtained it.

David Mandell is a Florida Bar member practicing in Norwich, CT.