Download or read book Stepping Up written by Alex Belth and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Documents the lawsuit of Curt Flood, who objected to his trade to the Phillies in 1969, discussing how his case helped advance the rights of professional athletes, in an account that includes coverage of his childhood and career.
Download or read book The Curt Flood Story written by Stuart L. Weiss and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2007-06-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Curt Flood, former star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, is a hero to many for selflessly sacrificing his career to challenge the legality of baseball’s reserve system. Although he lost his case before the Supreme Court, he has become for many a martyr in the eventually successful battle for free agency. Sportswriters and fans alike have helped to paint a picture of Flood as a larger-than-life figure, a portrait that, unhappily, cannot stand closer inspection. This book reveals the real Curt Flood—more man than myth. Flood stirred up a hornet’s nest by refusing to be traded from the Cardinals to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1969 season, arguing that Major League Baseball’s reserve system reduced him to the status of bondage. Flood decided to resist a system in which his contract could be traded without his consent and in which he was not at liberty to negotiate his services in an open market. Stuart Weiss examines the man behind the decision, exploring the span of Flood’s life and shedding light on his relationships with those who helped shape his determination to sue baseball and providing a new perspective on the lawsuit that found its way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Although a superb player, Flood was known to be temperamental and sensitive; in suing Major League Baseball he transformed his grievances against the Cardinals front office into an attack on how the business of big-league ball was conducted. Weiss shows that Flood was far from the stereotypical “dumb jock” but was rather a proud, multifaceted black man in a business run by white moguls. By illuminating Flood’s private side, rarely seen by the public, he reveals how Flood misled a gullible press on a regular basis and how his 1971 memoir, The Way It Is, didn’t tell it the way it really was. Drawing on previously untapped sources, Weiss examines more fully and deeply than other writers the complexities of Flood’s decision to pursue his lawsuit—and demonstrates that the picture of Flood as a martyr for free agency is a myth. He suggests why, of all the players traded or sold through the years, it was Flood who brought this challenge. Weiss also explains how Flood’s battle against the reserve system cannot be understood in isolation from the personal experiences that precipitated it, such as his youth in a dysfunctional home, his troubled first marriage, his financial problems, and his unwavering commitment to the Cardinals. The Curt Flood Story is a realistic account of an eloquent man who presented a warm, even vulnerable, face to the public as well as to friends, while hiding his inner furies. It shows that Flood was neither a hero nor a martyr but a victim of unique circumstances and his own life.
Download or read book A Well Paid Slave written by Brad Snyder and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-09-25 with total page 500 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “captivating”* look at how center fielder Curt Flood's refusal to accept a trade changed Major League Baseball forever. After the 1969 season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their star center fielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies, setting off a chain of events that would change professional sports forever. At the time there were no free agents, no no-trade clauses. When a player was traded, he had to report to his new team or retire. Unwilling to leave St. Louis and influenced by the civil rights movement, Flood chose to sue Major League Baseball for his freedom. His case reached the Supreme Court, where Flood ultimately lost. But by challenging the system, he created an atmosphere in which, just three years later, free agency became a reality. Flood’s decision cost him his career, but as this dramatic chronicle makes clear, his influence on sports history puts him in a league with Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali. *The Washington Post
Download or read book One Man Out written by Robert Michael Goldman and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles star baseball player Curt Flood's attempt to overthrow the "reserve" clause system of professional baseball, which bound players to teams as a form of property. Although he lost his legal battle, the Court left the door open for the players to eventually negotiate a version of "free agency."
Download or read book Curt Flood in the Media written by Abraham Iqbal Khan and published by Univ. Press of Mississippi. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 363 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Curt Flood in the Media examines the public discourse surrounding Curt Flood (1938–1997), the star centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals throughout the sixties. In 1969, Flood was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time, all Major League Baseball players were subject to the reserve clause, which essentially bound a player to work in perpetuity for his original team, unless traded for another player or sold for cash, in which case he worked under the same reserve conditions for the next team. Flood refused the trade on a matter of principle, arguing that Major League Baseball had violated both US antitrust laws and the 13th Amendment's prohibition of involuntary servitude. In a defiant letter to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn asking for his contractual release, Flood infamously wrote, “after twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.” Most significantly, Flood appeared on national television with Howard Cosell and described himself as a “well-paid slave.” Explosive controversy ensued. Khan examines the ways in which the media constructed the case and Flood's persona. By examining the mainstream press, the Black press, and primary sources, including Flood's autobiography, Khan exposes the complexities of what it means to be a prominent Black American athlete—in 1969 and today.
Download or read book Baseball s Reserve System written by Neil F. Flynn and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On October 8, 1969, the St. Louis Cardinals traded center fielder Curt Flood to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time of the trade, Flood was thirty-one years old, at the top of his game and in the prime of his life. In professional baseball, trades are not uncommon. What was different about this trade was that Curtis Charles Flood refused to recognize the - right - of the Cardinals to trade him to another team without his consent. In doing so, Flood challenged a practice that was designed and enforced by professional baseball owners for over eighty years - a practice commonly referred to as the - reserve system. It was the late 1960s - a decade of great racial tension and unrest; the Vietnam War was dividing the country; and now Curt Flood, a black man was challenging the lily-white major league baseball establishment.On January 16, 1970, Curt Flood filed suit in the Federal District Court in New York against major league baseball alleging that baseball?s reserve system violated the Sherman Antitrust Act and Flood?s rights under federal law. Flood argued that once he signed a contract (in his case, when he was eighteen years old), he was owned by (this team) for life and that the reserve system was tantamount to slavery.Flood?s decision to challenge major league baseball cost him his baseball career and much more. Despite the U.S. Supreme Court?s denial of Flood?s claims and ruling (in 1972) that professional baseball was exempt from federal antitrust regulation, professional baseball players had (free agency) by 1975. This is the story of Curt Flood?s case and trial against major league baseball and its aftermath.
Download or read book Bunts written by George F. Will and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1999-03-04 with total page 372 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Baseball is explored with skill, humor, and devotion by a literary great in this compendium which includes a moving eulogy for Curt Flood and no-holds-barred portraits of Ted Williams, Pete Rose, and Billy Martin. 90 photos.
Download or read book A Whole Different Ball Game written by Marvin Miller and published by Ivan R. Dee Publisher. This book was released on 2004 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marvin Miller became the first executive director of the newly formed Major League Baseball Players Association. He recounts his experience in dealing with club owners and his success in winning a new role for the players. He helped virtually end the system that bound an athlete to one team forever and thereby raised salaries enormously. formed
Download or read book October 1964 written by David Halberstam and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2012-12-18 with total page 525 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The “compelling” New York Times bestseller by the Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, capturing the 1964 World Series between the Yankees and Cardinals (Newsweek). David Halberstam, an avid sports writer with an investigative reporter’s tenacity, superbly details the end of the fifteen-year reign of the New York Yankees in October 1964. That October found the Yankees going head-to-head with the St. Louis Cardinals for the World Series pennant. Expertly weaving the narrative threads of both teams’ seasons, Halberstam brings the major personalities on the field—from switch-hitter Mickey Mantle to pitcher Bob Gibson—to life. Using the teams’ subcultures, Halberstam also analyzes the cultural shifts of the sixties. The result is a unique blend of sports writing and cultural history as engrossing as it is insightful. This ebook features an extended biography of David Halberstam.
Download or read book A Level Playing Field written by Gerald L. Early and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-29 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The noted cultural critic Gerald Early explores the intersection of race and sports, and our deeper, often contradictory attitudes toward the athletes we glorify. What desires and anxieties are encoded in our worship of (or disdain for) high-performance athletes? What other, invisible contests unfold when we watch a sporting event?
Download or read book Drama and Pride in the Gateway City written by Society for American Baseball Research (SABR) and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 866 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: By 1964 the storied St. Louis Cardinals had gone seventeen years without so much as a pennant. Things began to turn around in 1953, when August A. Busch Jr. bought the team and famously asked where all the black players were. Under the leadership of men like Bing Devine and Johnny Keane, the Cardinals began signing talented players regardless of color, and slowly their star started to rise again. Drama and Pride in the Gateway City commemorates the team that Bing Devine built, the 1964 team that prevailed in one of the tightest three-way pennant races of all time and then went on to win the World Series, beating the New York Yankees in the full seven games. All the men come alive in these pages--pitchers Ray Sadecki and Bob Gibson, players Lou Brock, Curt Flood, and Bobby Shantz, manager Johnny Keane, his coaches, the Cardinals' broadcasters, and Bill White, who would one day run the entire National League--along with the dramatic events that made the 1964 Cardinals such a memorable club in a memorable year.
Download or read book The Imperfect Diamond written by Lee Lowenfish and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2010-04 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the introduction of the reserve clause in 1879 to the lockout and new basic agreement of 1990, baseball players have been engaged in one of the longest and most colorful labor struggles in our nation’s history. The Imperfect Diamond tells the stories of the players and their opponents, the powerful owners: how John Montgomery Ward led the Players League Rebellion of 1890; the rise and fall of David Fultz and the Baseball Players Fraternity (1912–18); the iron-fisted regime of Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis; the case of Danny Gardella vs. Happy Chandler and the blacklisting of the players who jumped to the Mexican League; the founding of the Baseball Players Association in 1953 and the tempestuous but triumphant reign of Marvin Miller; the struggles of Curt Flood, Andy Messersmith, and Dave McNally, and how they brought about the demise of the reserve clause; the unprecedented midseason strike of 1981 and the collusion cases of the late 1980s. In the epilogue for this Bison Books edition, Lee Lowenfish guides the reader through the turbulent 1990s and first decade of the twenty-first century, covering expansion teams, the monumental 1994 strike, and performance-enhancing drugs. Listed by the Society of American Baseball Research as one of the fifty essential baseball books, The Imperfect Diamond will stand for years to come as the source for the real story behind America’s national pastime.
Download or read book Circular written by and published by . This book was released on 1943 with total page 12 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mickey and Willie written by Allen Barra and published by Crown. This book was released on 2014-04-01 with total page 522 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed sportswriter Allen Barra exposes the uncanny parallels--and lifelong friendship--between two of the greatest baseball players ever to take the field. Culturally, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays were light-years apart. Yet they were nearly the same age and almost the same size, and they came to New York at the same time. They possessed virtually the same talents and played the same position. They were both products of generations of baseball-playing families, for whom the game was the only escape from a lifetime of brutal manual labor. Both were nearly crushed by the weight of the outsized expectations placed on them, first by their families and later by America. Both lived secret lives far different from those their fans knew. What their fans also didn't know was that the two men shared a close personal friendship--and that each was the only man who could truly understand the other's experience.
Download or read book The St Louis Baseball Reader written by Richard Peterson and published by University of Missouri Press. This book was released on 2006-10-01 with total page 455 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The St. Louis Baseball Reader is a tale of two teams: one the city’s lovable losers, the other a formidable dynasty. The St. Louis Cardinals are the most successful franchise in National League history, while the St. Louis Browns were one of the least successful, yet most colorful, American League teams. Now Richard Peterson has collected the writings of some of baseball’s greatest storytellers to pay tribute to both these teams. His book, the first anthology devoted exclusively to the Cardinals and Browns, covers the rich history of St. Louis baseball from its late-nineteenth-century origins to the modern era. The St. Louis Baseball Reader is a celebration of the many legendary stars and colorful characters who wore St. Louis uniforms and the writers who told their stories, including Alfred Spink, Roger Angell, George Will, and Baseball Hall of Fame writers Bob Broeg, J. Roy Stockton, Red Smith, and Fred Lieb. Here, too, are John Grisham, who grew up a Redbirds fan in Mississippi, and Jack Buck, the most identifiable voice in Cardinal history. Great players—Grover Cleveland Alexander, Rogers Hornsby, Marty Marion, and Satchel Paige—tell their own stories, while Bill Veeck offers an account of his wild ride as the last Browns owner and Whitey Herzog shares regrets about the play that cost the Cardinals the 1985 World Series. From the days of the Gas House Gang to the 1944 “Streetcar Series,” from Bill Veeck’s legendary stunts to Mark McGwire’s pursuit of Roger Maris’s home-run record, the Reader will bring back memories for every fan. It takes in all of the magic of the ballpark—whether recounting the unhittable pitching of Bob Gibson, the slugging prowess of Stan “The Man” Musial, or the sterling glove-work of Ozzie Smith—along with reflective commentaries that tell how Jackie Robinson confronted racism and Curt Flood challenged the reserve clause. St. Louis is a city blessed with a memorable baseball history, and The St. Louis Baseball Reader perfectly captures the joy and heartbreak of its winning and losing teams. It’s a book that will delight current fans of the Cardinals and old-timers who fondly recall the Browns.
Download or read book Court Justice written by Ed O'Bannon and published by Diversion Books. This book was released on 2018-02-13 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Like Curt Flood and Oscar Robertson, who paved the way for free agency in sports, Ed O’Bannon decided there was a principle at stake... O’Bannon gave the movement to reform college sports...passion and purpose, animated by righteous indignation.” —Jeremy Schaap, ESPN journalist and New York Times bestselling author In 2009, Ed O’Bannon, once a star for the 1995 NCAA Champion UCLA Bruins and a first-round NBA draft pick, thought he’d made peace with the NCAA’s exploitive system of “amateurism.” College athletes generated huge profits, yet—training nearly full-time, forced to tailor coursework around sports, often pawns in corrupt investigations—they saw little from those riches other than revocable scholarships and miniscule chances of going pro. Still, that was all in O’Bannon’s past...until he saw the video game NCAA Basketball 09. As avatars of their college selves—their likenesses, achievements, and playing styles—O’Bannon and his teammates were still making money for the NCAA. So, when asked to fight the system for players past, present, and future—and seeking no personal financial reward, but rather the chance to make college sports more fair—he agreed to be the face of what became a landmark class-action lawsuit. Court Justice brings readers to the front lines of a critical battle in the long fight for players’ rights while also offering O’Bannon’s unique perspective on today’s NCAA recruiting scandals. From the basketball court to the court of law facing NCAA executives, athletic directors, and “expert” witnesses; and finally to his innovative ideas for reform, O’Bannon breaks down history’s most important victory yet against the inequitable model of multi-billion-dollar “amateur” sports.
Download or read book The End of Baseball as We Knew it written by Charles P. Korr and published by University of Illinois Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Table of contents
