A Well-Paid Slave (2 page)

The morning of Toomey's phone call, Flood woke up his two roommates—his oldest brother, Herman, and his friend and business manager, Marian Jorgensen—and swore to them that he was not going to Philadelphia. Like most proud ballplayers traded at the height of their careers, he threatened to retire.

Flood, however, was not like most ballplayers. He would joke around with his teammates one minute and stick his head in a book the next. He spoke in a soft, soothing voice and sounded like a college professor. He liked to draw, played classical piano by ear, and taught his best friend and road roommate, pitcher Bob Gibson, how to play the ukulele. Both Gibson and former Cardinals first baseman Bill White, Flood's closest friends in baseball, had attended college. Flood, however, had missed out on the college experience and engaged in constant self-education. “When Bob and I were reading the
Sporting News
, Curt was reading novels,” White said. “We were listening to rock and blues, Curt was listening to classical music. We tried to play the harmonica, Curt had mastered the guitar.”

Flood's quiet, artistic side obscured his lifelong battle against injustice. He had survived a childhood in a West Oakland ghetto, two minor league seasons in the Jim Crow South, and the racist attitudes of major league management. He persevered because of the courage Jackie Robinson had shown in 1947 and throughout his 10-year career with the Dodgers. After his playing days, Robinson inspired Flood to get involved in the civil rights movement. In 1961, Flood spoke out against segregated spring training camps in Florida. The next year, he spoke with Robinson at an NAACP rally in Mississippi. Flood integrated a white Bay Area neighborhood after the 1964 season with a court order and armed police protection. In 1969, he served as the president of Aunts and Uncles, a St. Louis organization that provided shoes and clothing to underprivileged children.

One of Flood's favorite authors was James Baldwin, the bard of the black freedom struggle. In November 1962, Baldwin shocked readers of
The New Yorker
with his essay about race in America,
The Fire Next Time
. He wrote not about Martin Luther King's nonviolent protest marches, but about Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam, not about southern segregation, but of northern racial discontent. He awakened people to the changing face of the civil rights movement. Baldwin's prescient essay challenged “the relatively conscious whites and the relatively conscious blacks . . . to end the racial nightmare . . . and change the history of the world.” He concluded by quoting an old slave song: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time!”

Inspired by the civil rights movement, Flood, too, was thinking about the future and was not making idle threats. The reserve clause gave him two choices—play for Philadelphia or retire. Flood knew one thing: He was not going to Philadelphia.

A few hours after his phone call from Toomey, Flood called Cardinals general manager Bing Devine. Devine was in the middle of a press conference, so Flood left a message for Devine to call him.

At 9:30 a.m., Devine explained to the media why he had traded his two co-captains, Flood and McCarver. Flood was a $90,000-a-year singles hitter showing signs of decline. In 1969, his batting average had fallen 15 points to .285, and his throwing arm, never strong, had not fully recovered from an injury two years earlier. McCarver had a sore arm and could be replaced by rookie catcher Ted Simmons or Joe Torre, an All-Star and former catcher acquired the previous season. The press conference lasted an hour and a half. As soon as it was over, Devine called Flood.

Devine had wanted all the players notified of the trade before the press conference, but it was odd that he had not called Flood himself. Toomey was one of the least respected members of the Cardinals organization. Perhaps Devine could have softened the blow. Vaughan Palmore “Bing” Devine was as respected by the Cardinals players as Toomey was disrespected. Best known for his shrewd trades, Devine had dealt pitchers for many of the cornerstones of the Cardinals' World Series teams of the 1960s: Sam Jones for Bill White; Vinegar Bend Mizell for second baseman Julian Javier; Don Cardwell (and shortstop Julio Gotay) for shortstop Dick Groat; Ernie Broglio for future Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock; and Willard Schmidt, Marty Kutyna, and Ted Wieand for a small but highly touted minor leaguer named Curtis Flood.

Devine had a soft spot in his heart for Flood, who was his first acquisition as general manager. On the last night of the 1957 winter meetingsin Colorado Springs, Devine and Cardinals manager Fred Hutchinson skipped the annual minor league dinner and talked late into the night with their Cincinnati Reds (or Redlegs, as they were officially known from 1953 to 1958) counterparts, Gabe Paul and Birdie Tebbetts. Hutchinson and Tebbetts had been battery mates and roommates with the 1940s-era Detroit Tigers. Hutchinson knew that Tebbetts and the Reds needed pitching and that Flood might be able to fill the Cardinals' void in center field. The Cardinals' manager had seen Flood play in a B game in spring training two years earlier and was impressed that a kid right out of high school could play with such confidence. Devine and Hutchinson recessed for 30 minutes and at 3 a.m. made the deal.

At the time, the Reds were forcing Flood to play winter ball in Venezuela. They wanted him to learn second base, his third position in three years. He had played center field and third base during two minor league seasons in the Jim Crow South. In Venezuela, his body was racked for a month by dysentery and sore from taking hundreds of ground balls off his chest. He was sitting on a stool in the Pastora Milkers clubhouse in Maracaibo when a long telegram arrived from Gabe Paul announcing that he had been traded. For 30 minutes, Flood stared at the telegram in shock. He vowed that he would not allow himself to suffer the indignity of being traded ever again.

Twelve years later, during a lengthy phone conversation with Devine, Flood made good on his promise. He told Devine that he was not going to report to Philadelphia. At age 31, he was going to retire. He was physically and mentally exhausted. He had spent the first 14 years of his adult life playing baseball. There had to be more to life than playing center field. Besides, he wanted to focus on his St. Louis-based photography and portrait-painting business.

Flood had also threatened to retire before the 1969 season when Toomey had insulted him by offering a $5,000 raise from $72,500 to $77,500. In 1968, Flood was one of six major leaguers to bat .300 or better and helped lead the Cardinals to their second consecutive World Series appearance. A
Sports Illustrated
cover that season proclaimed him “Baseball's Best Centerfielder.” For years, he had been making leaping catches over outfield walls in ways no one had ever seen before. From 1965 to 1967, he set a National League record by handling 555 chances in 226 consecutive games without an error. The press predicted that he would be baseball's first $100,000-a-year singles hitter, ahead of the Cincinnati Reds' Pete Rose. In those days, $100,000 was the salary barrier that separated All-Stars from superstars. Flood believed that this was his last best chance to achieve his salary goal. “If you don't pay me $100,000 to play baseball,” he told Devine before the 1969 season, “then I am going to retire.” He put it even more strongly in the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
: “At this moment, I wouldn't consider taking even $99,999.”

During his salary negotiations with Flood in March 1969, Devine knew that he could not find a comparable center fielder a month before the season. But he also recognized Flood's retirement talk as a common negotiating ploy. In his gentlemanly way, Devine explained to Flood that he was only 31 and had plenty of time to reach six figures. Devine made a final offer of $90,000. Flood accepted, but his retirement threat had been real. “I'm making $90,000 now,” he told a reporter in March 1969. “If I have a good year I can hit $100,000. Three more years at that price and I'll be set financially for life. I won't have to work for money. I'll be able to do what I want, go where I want, say what I want. I want to get as far away from baseball as I can. I am just tired of the struggle, the pressures, the problems of making it, the problems of staying on top, the fighting with umpires, the struggling for the base hits, the fears, the insecurities.”

To escape the pressures of the playing field, Flood often resorted to drinking and womanizing. He enjoyed the party scene, both in St. Louis and on the road. He always seemed to have a vodka martini in his hand and a beautiful woman on his arm. The popular drug of choice among Flood and his fellow ballplayers, alcohol had aged Flood beyond his years and had begun to erode his playing skills.

The first sign of Flood's physical decline came at the worst possible time—the seventh and deciding game of the 1968 World Series. With no score in the seventh inning, two men on base, and his good buddy Gibson on the mound, Flood misjudged a line drive hit by Detroit's Jim Northrup. The ball sailed over Flood's head for a triple, scoring two runs and costing the Cardinals the game and the Series. Bitterly sipping champagne in the clubhouse after the game, Flood accepted full responsibility for his team's defeat.

In light of his World Series gaffe and subsequent contract demands, Flood's trade from the Cardinals was inevitable. During spring training in 1969, Cardinals and Anheuser-Busch president August “Gussie” Busch lectured Flood and his teammates about their ungrateful attitudes. Flood, who had been Busch's favorite player, went from being Busch's pet to a pariah. In May 1969, the team fined Flood $250 for missing a team luncheon (he had suffered a 10-inch spike wound during the previous game and, because of the medication, had overslept). His bat orders stopped arriving on time. He discovered that someone had begun to take his customary parking space beneath Busch Stadium.

“Something is happening,” Flood confided to pitcher Jim “Mudcat” Grant, who lived with Flood after coming to the Cardinals in June 1969 from Montreal. “They're either going to trade me or something.”

“They're not going to trade you,” Grant said.

“Yes,” Flood said, “they are.”

In May 1969, the newspapers reported a possible trade of Flood, McCarver, and Javier to the Reds for second baseman Tommy Helms and 21-year-old star catcher Johnny Bench. In September, Flood made anonymous comments in the
St. Louis Globe-Democrat
criticizing management for giving up on the season by inserting rookies in key spots in the batting order. Devine responded that griping veterans could expect sweeping changes next season. Flood told McCarver during the last week of the season that he would retire rather than report to another team. “If they trade me,” Flood said, “I'm packing it in.”

During his October 8 phone conversation with Devine, Flood cited the same mental and physical exhaustion as when he had threatened to retire before the 1969 season. Then he said something that threw Devine for a loop.

Flood said he wished Devine had “shot me down” last spring.

“When you say, ‘shot me down,' ” Devine asked, “what do you mean?”

If Devine had come back with anything less than $90,000 during their contract negotiations in early March, Flood explained, he would have retired before the 1969 season.

Devine spent much of the conversation trying to talk Flood out of an “emotional reaction.” The Cardinals general manager believed that Flood still had a few more good seasons left in him, that he obviously liked playing center field because he had been doing it so well and for so long, and that once Flood had a few days or weeks to reconsider, he would report to the Phillies. Devine wanted Phillies general manager John Quinn to call Flood as soon as possible. The sooner Quinn talked to Flood, Devine believed, the less likely Flood would follow through with his plan to retire. Devine told Flood that Quinn would be calling him immediately.

“Well, there's not much use,” Flood replied. He had nothing to say to Quinn. There was no way he was going to report to the Phillies. He then offhandedly mentioned that Quinn had better call him soon because he was scheduled to leave for a previously planned vacation to Denmark. Devine told Flood to expect Quinn's call.

Flood sat in a chair by the phone for the rest of the day. The phone rang constantly, but he refused to answer it. Quinn called from Philadelphia, but one of Flood's roommates told Quinn that Flood was unavailable.

Flood publicly announced his plan to retire and responded to numerous media inquiries by issuing a press release. He said in the statement that the trade “comes as a surprise and a personal disappointment. . . . When you spend 12 years with one club, you develop strong ties with your teammates and the fans who have supported your efforts over a period of years. . . . Everyone in St. Louis—from Cardinals management to the various sportscasters and writers to the fans themselves—has made my baseball career a wonderful experience.”

The remainder of Flood's statement explained his decision and echoed his conversation with Devine:

“For the past year or two it has been increasingly difficult to stay in top physical shape; as you know I'll soon be 32 years of age. In addition, with my playing days nearing an end due to physical considerations alone, I've had to think of my own and my children's future. Consequently, I've felt that I should give more time to the Curt Flood Photo Studio franchise business, as well as a large backlog of oil portrait commissions.

“I then told Mr. Devine that the trade to Philadelphia has caused me to make a personal decision that I have been putting off for some time. If I were younger I certainly would enjoy playing for Philadelphia. But under the circumstances, I have decided to retire from organized baseball, effective today, and remain in St. Louis where I can devote full time to my business interests.”