A Well-Paid Slave (52 page)

The Messersmith-McNally decision gave Miller and the Players Association incredible leverage in the ongoing negotiations over the 1976 Basic Agreement. Miller recognized that making all the players immediately eligible for free agency would create an oversupply of free agents and depress the value of their services. Instead, the union negotiated a deal that allowed players to become free agents by continuing to play without signed contracts in 1976, or after their sixth year of major league service. In addition, players with five years of major league service could demand a trade. During the first offseason with multiple high-profile free agents, Reggie Jackson signed the largest free-agent contract by agreeing to a five-year deal worth $3 million with the Yankees.

The gains from the Hunter and Messersmith decisions, according to Miller, could not have been achieved without Flood's struggle and sacrifices. “I can't help but think both Hunter and Messersmith/McNally had to, at the appropriate time, have been influenced by the courage of a Curt Flood,” Miller said. “As in any case of an advance that had to be fought for, the struggle of those who came before, including those who didn't succeed, had to have an impact on those who later proved to be successful. In my gut, I feel there was a connection, but I can't prove it.”

Miller and Moss tried to educate the players about what Flood had started. In the spring of 1977, they traveled to all the teams' spring training camps. They mentioned Flood's name and told his story at practically every stop. Miller and Moss wanted the union to recognize Flood, but they wanted it to come from the players. The six years that Flood had been away from the game was a baseball lifetime. Many players did not even know who he was.

Flood's last few years in Europe had not been kind. The Spanish police, after seeing servicemen coming and going at all hours, closed his bar. Having lost his only source of income, he gave his World Series rings to a vacationing Texas couple as collateral for a “loan” of a few thousand dollars. Flood packed up his remaining baseball trophies and memorabilia, left some debts behind in Majorca, and sought refuge in Andorra, a tiny country perched in the Pyrenees on the Spanish-French border, with Ann and her teenage son. After Curt and Ann parted ways, he found himself unable to rent an apartment in Andorra because he was black. The Andorran government refused to grant him a work permit. He performed odd jobs to survive, working for a time as a carpet installer and living in a single room above a British-owned pizzeria called Nelson's Tavern. He drank there so frequently that his picture joined those of 40 regulars above the bar. Flood's photo was the only one with a caption: “Super Hermit.” Drunk and destitute, Flood sometimes found shelter with friends. His possessions consisted of a dog, a scooter, and a small duffel bag of belongings. “He is said to often voice regret that he ever made his sensational stand and walked out of baseball and turned his back on America,” a Spanish correspondent informed
Sports Illustrated
in August 1975.

On October 1, 1975, Flood was arrested outside a well-known Andorran department store. The police broke his left arm, accused him of theft, and threw him into jail. “There have been reports that he has drinking problems,” a cable sent from the American consulate in Barcelona to the State Department said. “He had no money when he was detained.” Two days later, the local judge decided not to charge Flood with theft because he “was drunk when he attempted to rob a department store” and “no merchandise was stolen.” That afternoon, the Andorran government put him on a bus to Barcelona.

About 10 days later, Flood landed in a Barcelona psychiatric hospital and was treated for alcoholism. When the hospital discharged him at the end of October, he could not pay the $300 bill so the city of Barcelona picked up the tab. He wanted to go home to Oakland but could not afford the $330 flight from Barcelona to New York. The State Department requested financial assistance from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare and contacted Flood's family. In early November 1975, according to a State Department cable from Henry Kissinger, Flood's father paid for Curt's ticket to Oakland.

Flood arrived at the Oakland airport with only a small duffel bag. He had nothing to show for his playing career. He was almost 38 years old and back at square one. He was not back on Helen Street in a West Oakland ghetto, but he returned home just as poor as he had left. His family and a few friends greeted him. He was a mess. Instead of getting help, he retreated into his own personal prison. He moved in with his 76-year-old mother, Laura, in one of three adjacent apartments that he had originally purchased for her and the rest of his family. She, too, had issues with alcohol and could not rehabilitate her youngest son. Curt's half sister Rickie and his brother Carl lived in the other two apartments.

Curt's relationship with Carl had never recovered from his brother's February 1969 attempted jewelry store robbery and shoot-out with police. Curt believed the resulting bad publicity was the reason the Cardinals had traded him. Carl's crime had attracted the attention of both of the St. Louis daily newspapers. Carl had also stolen money and photographs from people who had prepaid for Flood to paint their portraits. During his prison sentence for the robbery, Carl worked as a part-time staff member for Missouri lieutenant governor William C. Phelps investigating prison-related complaints in an ombudsman program that Carl had devised. In 1974, he presented former Missouri governor Warren E. Hearnes with a portrait that Curt had supposedly painted in 1965. After more than six years in prison, Carl was released on parole in November 1975 and returned to Oakland. The following year, with the help of the local Legal Aid Society and ACLU chapter, Carl sued the Alameda County director of elections to regain his voting rights. He lost because he was on parole until 1982.

Curt detested Carl's presence in those apartments. Carl continued to run scams on his family. He acted like a bedridden invalid around his mother, Laura, so she would take care of him. Then, after she went to bed, he jumped into a waiting convertible to hit the town. In 1980, he wrote a poem about Willie McCovey and published it in the
Oakland Tribune
under Curt's name.

Curt could not evict Carl because the apartments in East Oakland no longer belonged to him. While Curt was in Spain, the IRS continued to pursue his back taxes—perhaps the unpaid withholding taxes from his photography business—and went after the apartments. He instructed Rickie, who had been keeping up the mortgage payments, to do anything to prevent their mother from being evicted. Rickie took title to the property and continued to pay the mortgage. Curt had been so poor while living in Spain that he had asked her to return his $10,000 down payment. She said she had sent him the money.

Back in Oakland, Flood's drinking continued unabated. He nearly died in June 1976 after fracturing his skull. His family says he fell from a ladder onto a concrete patio while trying to fix the antenna on the roof. He told a reporter that he fell down a flight of stairs. Others believed the fall was not accidental. He admitted to having “a couple of beers too many.” “They gave me a brain scan,” he said of his hospital stay, “and they found nothing.”

This was the humorous yet proud public face Flood showed in September 1976 to the
New York Times
's Murray Chass. Flood smoked cigarettes while discussing his lawsuit (it angered him that no active players had shown up at his trial); his life (he spent his days sitting around and doing nothing); and his desire to get back into baseball. “It's a little difficult to find a job for a used center fielder,” he told Chass. “You can't look in the want ads and find a job like that.”

All the reporters who interviewed Flood at his mother's apartment asked about his painting career. A portrait of his youngest daughter, Shelly, hung next to the door. Another of his young, beautiful mother adorned the wall over the couch. He parried any questions about making a living as a painter.

Flood desperately wanted to get back into baseball. It was the only thing he knew how to do. Ideally, he wanted a six-week job as a spring training instructor. He hoped to teach young players what he knew about the game. He did not want the job given to several retired black players—first base coach. He refused to spend his life telling players: “Don't get picked off.”

Teams were not lining up for Flood's services for a reason: He had sued them all in federal court. If there had been an enemies list in Major League Baseball, Flood would have been on it. Although he denied it at the time, he had been blacklisted. Flood tried to explain why he had sued baseball. “The things that I did, I did for me,” he said. “I did that because I thought they were right. I thought I should have some control over what happened to my life.”

Flood did not begrudge the million-dollar contracts won by Hunter and Messersmith. He thought it was “cool” that “other people have benefited” from his lawsuit. “These guys are making more money and deservedly so. They're the show. They're it. They're making money because they work hard. Don't you tell me one minute that Catfish Hunter doesn't work his butt off. I know he does and he's the show.”

The Messersmith-McNally decision, however, dredged up all the feelings of unfairness about how the Supreme Court had decided his case. “[T]here was no way a black man was going to win that suit,” Flood wrote in 1977. “Listen, it eventually took two white guys—Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally—to destroy the reserve clause. Their battles were appreciably the same as mine.” If only Flood had won his lawsuit, he might have been able to live in peace. His loss before the nation's highest court gnawed at him.

Flood healed some of his wounds with the help of a friend of his sister, Barbara. Karen Brecher, who had befriended Barbara at a previous job, worked as a supervisor for the Alameda County Welfare Department. Karen came from a middle-class white family. She and Curt started dating and lived together for six years. Flood often referred to her as his wife even though they never married. Curt and Karen joined a bowling league. He occasionally played with Karen's son, Phil, on a slow-pitch softball team. They all lived together in Alameda and later moved to East Oakland not far from Flood's family.

Karen wrote to the Texas couple asking them to return Flood's World Series rings. The couple said they never wanted the rings in the first place and returned them in the same cigar box in which Flood had given them away. The day the rings arrived in the mail, Flood cried. He thought he had lost them forever. Bob Feller, a vocal critic of Flood's lawsuit, called the house and asked if Flood wanted to sell his World Series rings. Flood was not parting with them again. He was poor, but Karen could support him on her welfare supervisor's salary.

Flood missed baseball. He attended Oakland A's games and often hung out with some of the players at an Alameda bar called the 19th Hole. A few players recognized him. Pitcher Mike Torrez, a former Cardinals teammate, gave him the gold chain from around his neck in appreciation for what Flood had done. Flood often kept score at home while watching games on television. There was only one baseball announcer whom he could not bear to watch—Joe Garagiola. Garagiola, who had testified against him at his trial, made Flood's stomach churn.

Flood raised his public profile and fattened his wallet with several media opportunities. He coauthored a first-person article about his life and lawsuit for the November 1977 issue of
Sport
magazine. Howard Cosell conducted another television interview with him on January 22, 1978, for
ABC Sports Magazine
. It was the weekend of Flood's 40th birthday. Cosell flew Curt and Karen out to New York City, put them up at a fancy hotel, gave them theater tickets, and sent a limousine to take Flood to the studio. Nobody treated Flood more like a somebody than Cosell.

Richard Reeves spent a night on Flood's couch for a March 1978
Esquire
profile titled “The Last Angry Men”—“a search for heroes—for men who stood up to the system.” Richard Carter, the collaborator on Flood's book, tried to discourage Reeves from contacting Curt. “Maybe you should leave him alone,” Carter told Reeves. “Look, he took on something very big and it broke him.” Flood also begged Reeves not to come:

Flood relented after Reeves agreed to his request for one-third of the money from the article (because Flood was to be one of three people profiled). For the only time in his career, Reeves paid a source; he gave Flood $750.

Reeves admired Flood for taking on the establishment and pitied him for what he had become. Flood could not figure out how to put his life back together without baseball. He had been told that the price for challenging the reserve clause would be high, but he could not have known that he would be paying for that choice for the rest of his life. He drank straight vodka as he and Reeves talked into the night. “He was about the saddest man I ever met,” Reeves recalled.

Flood was so desperate for money that he tried to revive his portrait business. He and Karen started Curt Flood Portraits. Oakland furniture store owner Sam Bercovich agreed to show the paintings at E. Bercovich and Sons and even printed up flyers announcing “portraits by Curt Flood painted from your favorite photograph.”

The key to the business was reconnecting with Burbank-based artist Lawrence Williams. On January 9, 1978, Flood sent Williams payment for several portraits and thanked him for “whipping out the portraits I ordered on such short notice.” Flood also informed Williams of his new portrait business. “I decided that in leiu [
sic
] of a dishwashing job, I will try and sell portraits,” he wrote in a letter typed by Karen. “You should do a lot of business up your way,” Williams replied the next day by telegram. “I have one former professional football player that has been associated with me for 9-10 years, and he made a little over $80,000 this past year.” Williams was alluding to former NFL wide receiver Tommy McDonald.