When Curt Flood took on his biggest fight, Roberto Clemente was there to lend a hand
On December 13, 1969, player representatives from around the game gathered in Puerto Rico for the Major League Baseball Players Association’s annual Executive Board Meeting. It was a collective bargaining negotiation year, and much of the conversation revolved around the players’ quest to achieve economic gains. Among other things, MLB players were seeking an increase in the minimum salary to $10,500 a year and a bump in the daily meal allowance to $15.50. At that stage of the union’s evolution, advances were measured in blood, sweat and baby steps.
Once the bargaining review was complete, talk turned to the big baseball news of the day. Curt Flood, an outfielder with the St. Louis Cardinals, had refused to accept a trade to Philadelphia two months earlier, and was seeking to challenge the reserve clause tying players to their teams in perpetuity. Flood made such a powerful and compelling case, the PA’s Executive Board voted 25-0 to stand behind him in his quest. Although Flood ultimately lost his Supreme Court case in 1972, his trailblazing efforts heralded a change in player-ownership dynamics and paved the way for the advent of free agency three years later.
In that conference room at the Sheraton San Juan -- in the heart of Puerto Rico -- Roberto Clemente’s words and towering presence helped Curt Flood on the path to history.
Clemente, a first ballot Hall of Famer, is an icon in almost too many ways to count. He was a 15-time All-Star, four-time batting champion, 12-time Gold Glove Award winning outfielder and 1966 Most Valuable Player, with a blend of hitting acumen, defensive prowess, speed and charisma that few players could match. He was a proud Puerto Rico native, and a committed humanitarian who famously observed, “If you have a chance to help others and fail to do so, you're wasting your time on this earth.” Clemente’s commitment to helping others cost him his life on December 31, 1972, when he died in a plane crash off the coast of Puerto Rico while carrying relief supplies to earthquake victims in Nicaragua.
Beyond his more heralded achievements, Clemente was an organizer and connector who could relate to all corners of society and a clubhouse. In the early days of the Players Association, those attributes helped make Clemente a trusted and influential ally of Marvin Miller, the union’s founding executive director.
In 1968, when future Hall of Fame pitcher and player advocate Jim Bunning joined the Pirates in a trade, it was a virtual given that he would assume the role of Pittsburgh’s union representative. But Bunning lobbied for Clemente, and Miller agreed. As Brad Snyder recounts in his Curt Flood biography, “A Well-Paid Slave,’’ Miller understood the importance of minority voices such as Clemente and Reggie Jackson assuming prominent roles in union leadership.
“Marvin Miller was very perceptive about who he could get to help him on that journey where he wanted to go,’’ said Steve Blass, Clemente’s close friend from their days as Pirates teammates from 1964-72. “All the players respected Roberto, and Marvin was no dummy. He knew Clemente could touch a lot of people's lives and thoughts and beliefs. Even to this day, players that come to Pittsburgh from other cities take buses after the games and go to the Clemente Museum, so the influence is still there to that degree.
“You can imagine the influence Roberto Clemente had when he was playing, especially with all the Latinos who played in the major leagues. Here's a guy that if he wants to talk to you, you ain't going to say no. You're going to listen. So yeah, Marvin knew that was going to be valuable for him, for sure.’’
There was a certain inevitability to Flood and Clemente crossing paths, because of their utter fearlessness and shared social consciences. Both players knew and were inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the prominent civil rights leader. After King’s assassination in April 1968, Clemente and his Pittsburgh teammates refused to take the field out of respect for King and his legacy. That action prompted Major League Baseball to delay the season-opening schedule for two days in deference to King's funeral.
When Flood opted to resist tradition and challenge the established baseball order, he stood firm despite warnings from Miller and even some of his peers that his future in the game might be imperiled.
“We were having a meeting, and Marvin initially tried to talk Curt Flood out of challenging the reserve clause,’’ said Woody Woodward, a player representative for the Braves and Reds in early days of the PA. “He said, ‘This is not going to be good. Even if you win, you may be blackballed. You may never be able to come back.’ Curt Flood, to his credit, said, ‘No, this is not right. I'm going to stay the course.’ ’’
Dal Maxvill, a former Cardinals player representative who went on to work as a big-league coach and general manager, summarized the risks in a 2022 interview with the MLBPA. “He was the first pioneer over the hill, and the first pioneer over the hill usually gets the arrow,’’ Maxvill said of Flood.
Those warnings were prescient. Flood had made three All-Star teams and amassed seven Gold Gloves by age 31. But he appeared in only 13 more games, with the 1971 Washington Senators, and was out of baseball at age 33.
For Clemente, Flood’s cause was personal and shaped by his experiences on and off the field. As a Latin-American superstar, Clemente suffered numerous indignities in his transition to baseball. Baseball card companies Americanized his name and referred to him as “Bob Clemente,’’ and writers often portrayed his heavily accented English in a way that could be patronizing and dismissive. Even though Clemente routinely appeared in 140 or 150 games per season throughout his career, reporters often focused on his nagging injuries and labeled him a hypochondriac.
In Snyder’s Flood biography, he recalled how passionately Clemente took up Flood’s cause at the Sheraton San Juan in 1969. After turning down a $35,000 offer from the Milwaukee Braves for lesser compensation from the Brooklyn Dodgers because of a desire to play in New York, Clemente was poached from Brooklyn’s Triple-A roster by the last-place Pirates for $4,000 in the 1954 Rule 5 draft. He offered to return the money for his freedom, but Pittsburgh general manager Joe Brown refused to accede to his request.
“He had me,’’ Clemente told the player representatives in San Juan. According to Snyder, Clemente told the MLBPA Executive Board that the Pirates had “made $300,000 on me.’’ No small amount, given that Baseball-reference.com estimates that Clemente’s career earnings came in somewhere south of $800,000.
An illustrious and accomplished group attended the ‘69 Executive Board Meetings. The roster of player representatives included five future Hall of Famers (Clemente, Bunning, Jackson, Brooks Robinson and Joe Torre), two future managers (Torre and Phil Regan), three future general managers (Tom Haller, Maxvill and Woodward), a future Hall of Fame broadcaster (Tim McCarver) and multiple Cy Young Award winners (Jim Lonborg, Mike McCormick and Jim Perry).
The meeting’s official minutes chronicle the methodical approach Flood’s fellow players took in their fact-finding mission. In his presentation, Flood stressed that his efforts were not a bargaining ploy to extract more money from the Cardinals. He felt there were great inequities in the reserve system that owners were unwilling to address, and he had decided something must be done to bring about more equitable player-owner relations. Flood told the reps that he understood he might be subject to “personal attack’’ by owners and jeopardize his future in the game with his bold stance.
“Curt was willing to put himself in the front row with regard to his request to become a free agent and take it all on himself,’’ Lonborg said. “He didn't ask for any help. He just wanted to let people know this was the way he felt. God bless him -- that he had the strength and the conviction to stand up for what he felt was an injustice. When you look back on it, I think it was an injustice.’’
The Executive Board voted unanimously to back Flood, announce its support publicly, help him obtain the best legal counsel available, and, if necessary, financially assist him with any expenses he incurred. While the board’s unanimous vote help buttress Floyd’s challenge of the reserve clause, it also heralded an eventful time in the history of the Players Association and sports labor in general. MLB players went on strike in a dispute over pension benefits in the spring of 1972, and arbitrator Peter Seitz opened the door to free agency when he ruled in favor of Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally in their 1975 grievance.
“As Marvin took over and led us, we started to accomplish things,’’ Woodward said. “We thought getting a minimum salary increase was big. We thought finally traveling first class was a big item. And the more that happened, the more players started coming in and saying, ‘You know, Woody, we ought to look into this,’ or, ‘Let's discuss this with Marvin.’ You could see -- and I had the feeling -- that the association was growing.
“Then we get to the '69 meeting and see Curt Flood and what he wants to do and why he wants to do it, and you can't help but sit back and say, ‘Wow, this man is a quality individual and he's taking a very dangerous step for his career, but it could impact the game tremendously.’ And it was the next step. It was the union growing, and Marvin doing what he always did (as a leader).’’
Lonborg, who played winter ball with the Senadores de San Juan in Puerto Rican winter ball alongside Clemente in the early 1970s, came to know the private Clemente who existed beyond the headlines and the stifling attention in his homeland. He saw the empathy and personal values that prompted Clemente to champion Curt Flood’s cause at that historic meeting at the Sheraton.
“Roberto was a force,’’ Lonborg said. “He knew the difference between right and wrong, and he knew Curt was right. I'm sure he had experienced a lot of inequities (of his own) during his time as a minor league player and then as a major league player, so he knew that we were all on the right page.’’
The stories and testimonials from Clemente’s teammates still resonate as a source of pride with his family and fans in Puerto Rico. Luis Clemente, the second of Roberto and Vera Clemente’s three children, was only three years old when the momentous Executive Board Meeting took place in 1969. But time and countless new revelations have educated him on the significance of the bond his father shared with Curt Flood.
It is appropriate, in Luis Clemente’s estimation, that his father and Flood both wore uniform No. 21. Combine them and you have Jackie Robinson’s number, 42. The three men are kindred spirits linked in baseball history, and role models for everyone who refuses to take “no’’ for an answer in pursuit of a worthy cause.
“This meeting in San Juan was a place where Curt Flood’s personal courage became the collective responsibility of the Players Association,’’ Luis Clemente said. “Dad was very vocal about how he felt about equal treatment for everyone, not just Latinos in general or African Americans. All races to him were one. We're all humans, and I think that helps describe him as the humanitarian that he was.
“When Curt Flood positioned himself and actually sacrificed his baseball career, he did it understanding what it would represent for everyone else -- not just him. And it had an incredible trickle effect, not just in the game of baseball, but in the sports world and society as a whole. It’s about understanding the voice you have and how you use your career to benefit others. I think that's what elevated Curt Flood in his action of sacrifice, but also dad. He truly did not ask to be treated better; he demanded to be treated equally. There’s a huge difference.’’
