HBO Curt Flood Documentary

[sport historian]

This month of July, HBO has been showing "The Curious Case of Curt Flood." It deals with Flood's lawsuit against the reserve clause after he refused a trade in 1969.

Flood called himself a "well-paid slave." This didn't go down well with everyone at the time because Flood had a $100,000 dollar salary with the Cardinals, unusual at the time for a player who was not a home run hitter.

Some sports media types who reviewed the program crtiticize it for showing a warts and all portrayal of Flood, and he had a few. Flood was admittedly a bad husband and father and a heavy drinker. Despite his big salary, he was always in debt.

Flood was considered the best defensive center fielder of his day. The famous triple over his head by Jim Northrup that decided the 1968 World Series is shown, as well as Flood sipping champagne in the loser's locker room after the game.

Flood was also known as a portrait painter. He would sell them for a high price. The film reveals that he was perpetrating a fraud. Someone else took photos and painted over them. Flood claimed to have drawn them. One reviewer was indignant that HBO would reveal the truth about Curt Flood's supposed artistic skill.

Flood's case against baseball ended in defeat before the Supreme Court, which people forget. The door to free agency opened a few years later. It would have if Flood's challenge had never occured.

 

[jaxvid]

Flood always seemed to me to be one of those bad attitude negroes that were unusual for the era since white commonsense weeded most of those bad apples out, now of course they are encouraged, pampered, and celebrated, and so basically every black player now has the same bad attitude as a Curt Flood or Duane Thomas.

His misplay of the Northrup triple is probably one of the high points of my childhood. Years later I would work with some guys from the south who were big Cardinal fans (the Cardinals were the defacto team of the South before Atlanta had a team) and they grumped that the n*****r Flood was paid off to mess up that play. I scoffed then but who knows.

As far as the court challenge is concerned the court ruled correctly in his decison and exercised judicial overreach in overturning the reserve clause (which it did on a technicality-not on it's merit).

It's not surprising that there are those in the MSM that would want to hide the truth from people about Flood's art fraud. That is part and parcel of the whole agenda, they try and create a multicult paradise irrespective of the horrible reality that is the real world of diversity. I'm surprised there is not a special 'Curt Flood day' where everyone in the league has to wear his uniform number.

 

[sport historian]

Flood always seemed to me to be one of those bad attitude negroes that were unusual for the era since white commonsense weeded most of those bad apples out, now of course they are encouraged, pampered, and celebrated, and so basically every black player now has the same bad attitude as a Curt Flood or Duane Thomas.

His misplay of the Northrup triple is probably one of the high points of my childhood. Years later I would work with some guys from the south who were big Cardinal fans (the Cardinals were the defacto team of the South before Atlanta had a team) and they grumped that the n*****r Flood was paid off to mess up that play. I scoffed then but who knows.

As far as the court challenge is concerned the court ruled correctly in his decison and exercised judicial overreach in overturning the reserve clause (which it did on a technicality-not on it's merit).

It's not surprising that there are those in the MSM that would want to hide the truth from people about Flood's art fraud. That is part and parcel of the whole agenda, they try and create a multicult paradise irrespective of the horrible reality that is the real world of diversity. I'm surprised there is not a special 'Curt Flood day' where everyone in the league has to wear his uniform number.

If you do a Google search for "Jim Northrup triple," you can find a youtube of the TV broadcast.

 

[jaxvid]

If you do a Google search for "Jim Northrup triple," you can find a youtube of the TV broadcast.

Yes, thanks, I came across that youtube video just after Northrup passed away a couple of months ago. It's very good quality. Cash single, Horton single through the hole at short, Northrup triple, Freehan double in the gap. They legitimately got to Gibson that inning.

While looking up Curt Flood on wikipedia (no mention of his art fraud BTW just a complimentary comment of how much his 'Joe Dimaggio' painting sold for--perhaps I'll edit it) I noticed that Flood married a Hollywood starlet born in Burbank. Hmph I thought; another black power negro that has to have him a white women, but no, his wife Judy Pace was a black actress with many film credits. Interestingly they met on the Dating Game no less, oh for the old days when the network matched up prospective couple by race.

That got me to thinking how the black consciouness movement of the sixties had some good things about it, like marrying within the race. Other stuff, like being proud of your black heritage ie afros instead of weaving white peoples hair into theirs or conking the hair, segregating from evil whitey, and an emphasis on scholastic acheivement. High achieving blacks tried to marry other high achieving blacks which would have had the effect of improving the over all quality of the next generation. Unfortunately it could not offset the dysengenic habits caused by welfare and ADC and black men marrying the first white woman that they could.

That era is probably the high water mark for black social acheivement in history. It's been pretty much down hill since then. Although I feel you can say the same about white society too.

 

[Don Wassall]

Off topic, but the '68 World Series is one of my favorites, maybe my favorite if I took the time to rate the ones I've watched, other than the Pirates winning two classic series in 1971 and '79 when I was a big Buccos fan. Two dominant teams in their respective leagues, a tight-knit seven game series. And to call 1968 The Year of the Pitcher is a gross understatement. You had to go back to the dead ball era to find anything like it before or since. Carl Yastrzemski led the AL in batting that season at .301; no one else hit higher than .290. It was the last season before baseball went to four divisions and ruined the "post-season" set-up that had been in place for almost 70 years, with only the two pennant winning teams moving on to the World Series, which was the best way, especially compared to today's ultra-diluted qualifications for playoffs in every sport. And '68 was the wildest year historically, most of it in very bad ways, and Detroit was just coming off the deadly riots of the previous summer that shocked the country.

Flood I also remember for his ahead-of-his-time arrogance, though he was smarter and more articulate than the mindless idiot affletes of today.

 

[jaxvid]

More off topic: you can watch about the entire 1966 World Series on youtube. The series was really a snoozer Orioles-Dodgers, five games, in like 4 of them the Dodgers were shut out. But the video is pretty good quality, covers all of the few high points, and you get to watch the sun soaked (all games were during the day) Los Angelos crowds, a sea of well dressed white people, men in white shirts and black ties, women in their "Sunday best" not a one of them over 160 lbs. A snapshot of a much more innocent, and better, time.

 

[Realgeorge]

Off topic, but the '68 World Series .... Two dominant teams in their respective leagues, a tight-knit seven game series. And to call 1968 The Year of the Pitcher is a gross understatement. You had to go back to the dead ball era to find anything like it before or since. Carl Yastrzemski led the AL in batting that season at .301; no one else hit higher than .290. .... and Detroit was just coming off the deadly riots of the previous summer that shocked the country.

Flood I also remember for his ahead-of-his-time arrogance, though he was smarter and more articulate than the mindless idiot affletes of today.

1968 was an EXCELLENT baseball year. Outstanding All-star Game, where the players actually played. The Cardinals got kocky after dispatching the Bosox in 1967, and were outplayed by Kaline's crew next year. Riots marred the country for sure, and hurt baseball attendance. But Curt Flood ... a few years later, the Senators wasted salary on the bum, one of their numerous disaster trades leading to their collapse and move to Texas in 1971. Saw the Northrup triple, and his Grand Slam in an earlier World Series game. One of two games my dad took me to in 1968 was Senators vs Tigers in DC on 12 May. Washington won 6-3, Frank Howard had two homeruns, and I didn't know I was watching the eventual World Championship team. Mickey Lolich had an off day.

 

[foreverfree]

More off topic: you can watch about the entire 1966 World Series on youtube. The series was really a snoozer Orioles-Dodgers, five games, in like 4 of them the Dodgers were shut out.

The O's swept the Dodgers, shutting them out in games 2 (Koufax's final game), 3, and 4. Frank Robinson, coming off his Triple Crown/AL MVP performance in the RS, drove in more runs (3) than LAD scored (2).

John