Curt Flood was as crucial to the economic rights of baseball players as Jackie Robinson was to breaking the color barrier. A three-time All-Star and seven-time Gold Glove winner for his defensive prowess in center field, Flood hit over .300 six times during a 15-year major league career that began in 1956. Twelve of These seasons were spent wearing the St. Louis Cardinals uniform. After the 1969 season, the Cardinals attempted to trade Flood, then 31, to the Philadelphia Phillies, sparking his historic challenge to baseball's infamous "reserve clause." The reserve clause was the part of the standard player contract that bound the player, one year at a time, in perpetuity to the club owning his contract. Flood had no interest in moving to Philadelphia, a city he had always considered racist ("the northernmost and southernmost city in the country"), but more importantly, he objected to being treated as a good and to the restriction of freedom inherent in the system. reservation clause. Flood was fully aware of the social relevance of his rebellion against the baseball establishment. Years later, he explained: “I guess you really have to understand who this person was, who this Curt Flood was. I'm a child of the sixties, I'm a man of the sixties. At that time, this country was We were in Southeast Asia. Good men died for America and for the Constitution. In the American South, we were marching for civil rights and Dr. King had been assassinated, and we lost the Kennedys. ...And to think that just because I was a professional baseball player that I could ignore what was going on outside the walls of Busch Stadium was complete hypocrisy and that now I discovered that all of these rights for which these great Americans were dying of envy, I didn't understand them. "With the support of the Players Association and with former United States Supreme Court Justice Arthur Goldberg arguing on his behalf, Flood pursued the case known as Flood v. Kuhn (Commissioner Bowie Kuhn) from January 1970 to June 1972. at the district, circuit, and Supreme Court levels Although the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against Flood, upholding baseball's exemption from antitrust laws, the case paved the way for the Messersmith rulings. -McNally 1975 and the advent of free agency The financial and emotional costs to Flood due to his unprecedented defiance of the reserve clause were enormous..