April 8, 2009

Curt Flood And Free Agency, Part III

There were some interesting side notes going into the trial:

Flood, through his lawyer Arthur Goldberg, would continue to argue that the reserve clause should be held to the same restraint of trade standard that other industries were subjected to by the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

The defense spoke of baseball’s pervasive presence as a part of American culture, and argued that the reserve clause served to protect the “integrity of the game”. Baseball maintained that this was a labor- management issue, and that the players association had already agreed to the terms to which Flood took exception.
 

                                 Curt Flood and Marvin Miller

On June 19, 1972 the court ruled 5-3 in favor of Bowie Kuhn and Major League Baseball. Over the years legal scholars have widely criticized the court for their ruling, and even the majority opinion expressed some reservations about continuing baseball’s anti-trust exemption.

Justice Harry Blackmun wrote at length about the history of the game and all but said that baseball was interstate commerce, but he would not overrule the 1922 case of Federal Baseball Club v. National League, which had given baseball its anti-trust exemption.

In his dissent, Justice William Douglass wrote that the owners benefited from the reserve clause at the players expense:

“Baseball is today big business that is packaged with beer, with broadcasting, and with other industries. The beneficiaries of the Federal Baseball Club decision are not the Babe Ruths, Ty Cobbs, and Lou Gehrigs. The owners, whose records many say reveal a proclivity for predatory practices, do not come to us with equities. The equities are with the victims of the reserve clause. I use the word "victims" in the Sherman Act sense, since a contract which forbids anyone to practice his calling is commonly called an unreasonable restraint of trade.”

Curt Flood had exhausted his judicial remedies in seeking to overturn the trade to the Phillies from back in October of 1969. Though Flood signed to play with the Washington Senators for the 1971 season, his comeback lasted all of 13 games. Flood’s quest to take the reserve clause out of baseball was over, as was his career. But his almost three year battle against Major League Baseball had brought much needed attention to the players’ lack of freedom. Within 3½ years of the June, 1972 ruling, the tables would turn in favor of the players.