Either at the beginning of spring training or the beginning of the formal baseball season, the form of spring fever I experience is the need to write about Curt Flood.  

Curt Flood, the outstanding player for the St. Louis Cardinals, took the bold step of challenging the so-called �reserve clause� in baseball that kept players in a state of near indentured servitude, chained to their teams for as long as the owners may have wanted.   When he was being traded to the Philadelphia Phillies, he refused to accept this and brought a law suit challenging the reserved clause.  With the support of the Major League Baseball Players Association, at that time led by Executive Director Marvin Miller, Flood took the case to the US Supreme Court.  Though he lost the case, his actions set in motion a series of events that within a few short years�the early 1970s�brought about the collapse of the reserve clause and the introduction of what came to be known as �free agency.�

To put it in its bluntest terms, today�s athletes ALL owe Curt Flood immense gratitude for opening doors that remained shut, and for helping to bring into existence a system through which many athletes have become quite wealthy.  Yet, in one of history�s supreme ironies, few of today�s athletes have even a clue as to the person of Curt Flood and his contributions.

Flood�s actions would not have been possible without the support of the Players Association.   In Brad Snyder�s excellent book about Curt Flood and the struggle for free agency, A Well-Paid Slave, it becomes very clear that Marvin Miller did not recklessly approach this case, but had a strategic discussion with Flood, not only about the theory of the case, but also about the ramifications that Flood would face for taking such an action.  As such, this was a partnership to take on an injustice.

Flood did suffer, horribly in fact.  His life was ruined for years, and even when he returned to baseball, it was for all too brief a time.  The Players Association, building on the momentum from the case brought by Curt Flood, was able to challenge the reserve clause in negotiations and ultimately bring about its collapse.  This victory, however, was too late to salvage the career of Curt Flood.  Though he rebuilt his life, Flood passed away in 1997 never receiving the true acknowledgement and thanks that he more than deserved.

There have been numerous calls for Curt Flood to be inducted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.   They have fallen on deaf ears.  The time has not past, however, to persist in this demand, yet there is a piece that should be added.  Part of the debate as to whether Flood should be in the Hall of Fame revolves around how one looks at his baseball record.  This is a mistake.  Had he not been taken out of baseball there is little doubt that his statistics would have stood without question.

Yet the issue with Flood should actually not revolve around his stats.  He and Marvin Miller should both be inducted because of their major contributions to the sport of baseball.  The struggle that they led was a struggle that transformed baseball and on that basis alone the two of these giants should be inducted.

It is important to be clear, however, that the Major League Baseball owners hate both Flood and Miller (who, by the way, is still alive).  In that sense, the memory of their contribution will disappear into oblivion unless there is a well-organized effort to bring this to national attention and compel their entry into the Hall of Fame.

Acknowledgement of Flood and Miller is not about saying thanks for making it possible for athletes to gain great wealth, although that alone should have guaranteed that the beneficiaries of that struggle would have made this issue central.  Rather, the fight against the reserve clause was a fight against injustice in baseball, an injustice that guaranteed a privileged position for certain white players; servitude for everyone else; and immense profits for the owners.   Flood and Miller were champions of democracy and were prepared to make the sacrifices to expand its reach.  This, alone, should justify their placement in the Hall of Fame.

BlackCommentator.com Executive Editor, Bill Fletcher, Jr., is a Senior Scholar with the Institute for Policy Studies, the immediate past president of TransAfrica Forum and co-author of, Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and a New Path toward Social Justice (University of California Press), which examines the crisis of organized labor in the USA. Click here to contact Mr. Fletcher.