![]() ![]() Flood, to this day, is seen by some as antithetical to the big business interests of baseball - of all sports. While most players were too cowardly to support Flood, Robinson showed up in court and openly embraced him.īaseball, thanks to Robinson, has become a global game. While Jackie Robinson attacked the nation’s cancerous racism, Curt Flood shot an arrow directly into the heart of the game when he challenged the ironclad control that teams had over players in 1969. Their father was the thorn on a rose that still sticks in the side of Major League Baseball. Gary died at age 49 after years of struggling with mental health issues. “Some people don’t even know he had children,” Debbie Flood said.Ĭurt and Beverly Flood had five children: Debbie, Gary, Shelly, Curt Jr. What must it have been like to be Flood’s children growing up during their father’s fight? This is not a lament about Flood’s continued rejection by baseball, however. None of Sunday’s inductees sacrificed as much so future generations of major leaguers could reap the rewards. After the 2000 season, for example, Mussina used free agency to leave the Baltimore Orioles and sign a six-year, $88.5 million contract with the New York Yankees. But none of them has Flood’s revolutionary résumé, although each benefited from Flood’s act of defiance. This year’s inductees - Harold Baines, Roy Halladay, Edgar Martinez, Mike Mussina, Mariano Rivera and Lee Smith - are incredibly worthy. Once again, Curt Flood, author of the most heroic individual acts of resistance in modern Major League Baseball history, will be excluded. The 2019 Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place Sunday in Cooperstown, New York. “ I want my father in the Hall of Fame because I understand that that institution houses the history he is an important part of that history.” - Shelly Flood
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