After the 1969 season, the St. Louis Cardinals traded their star center fielder, Curt Flood, to the Philadelphia Phillies, setting off a chain of events that would change professional sports forever. At the time there were no free agents, no no-trade clauses. When a player was traded, he had to report to his new team or retire. Unwilling to leave St. Louis and influenced by the civil rights movement, Flood chose to sue Major League Baseball for his freedom. His case reached the Supreme Court, where Flood ultimately lost. But by challenging the system, he created an atmosphere in which, just three years later, free agency became a reality. Flood’s decision cost him his career, but as this dramatic chronicle makes clear, his influence on sports history puts him in a league with Jackie Robinson and Muhammad Ali.

Curt Flood in the Media examines the public discourse surrounding Curt Flood (1938-1997), the star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals throughout the sixties. In 1969, Flood was traded to the Philadelphia Phillies. At the time, all Major League Baseball players were subject to the reserve clause, which essentially bound a player to work in perpetuity for his original team, unless traded for another player or sold for cash, in which case he worked under the same reserve conditions for the next team. Flood refused the trade on a matter of principle, arguing that Major League Baseball had violated both U.S. antitrust laws and the 13th Amendment’s prohibition of involuntary servitude. In a defiant letter to Commissioner Bowie Kuhn asking for his contractual release, Flood infamously wrote, “after twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel that I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes.” Most significantly, Flood appeared on national television with Howard Cosell and described himself as a “well-paid slave.” Explosive controversy ensued. Khan examines the ways in which the media constructed the case and Flood’s persona. By examining the mainstream press, the black press, and primary sources including Flood’s autobiography, Khan exposes the complexities of what it means to be a prominent black American athlete-in 1969 and today.

Labor conditions and economic policy; principally in Europe and the United States.

Superman may be faster than a speeding bullet, but even he can't outrun copyright law. Since the dawn of the pulp hero in the 1930s, publishers and authors have fought over the privilege of making money off of comics, and the authors and artists usually have lost. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, got all of $130 for the rights to the hero. In Empire of the Superheroes, Mark Cotta Vaz argues that licensing and litigation do as much as any ink-stained creator to shape the mythology of comic characters. Vaz reveals just how precarious life was for the legends of the industry. Siegel and Shuster—and their heirs—spent seventy years battling lawyers to regain rights to Superman. Jack Kirby and Joe Simon were cheated out of their interest in Captain America, and Kirby's children brought a case against Marvel to the doorstep of the Supreme Court. To make matters worse, the infant comics medium was nearly strangled in its crib by censorship and moral condemnation. For the writers and illustrators now celebrated as visionaries, the "golden age" of comics felt more like hard times. The fantastical characters that now earn Hollywood billions have all-too-human roots. Empire of the Superheroes digs them up, detailing the creative martyrdom at the heart of a pop-culture powerhouse.

From 1947, when Jackie Robinson joined the Brooklyn Dodgers, through 1959, when the Boston Red Sox became the last Major League team to integrate, more than a hundred African American baseball players crossed the color line and made it to the Major Leagues. Each of these players is profiled in this comprehensive book, which includes their statistics and capsule biographies, their triumphs and trials. Some of these players became superstars of the game and eventual Hall of Famers—Jackie Robinson, Ernie Banks, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Roy Campanella, and Bob Gibson; most were average players. All were pioneers, facing down the enormous difficulties of integrating organized baseball. The authors provide a new preface and appendix for this Bison Books edition.

This new look at all-star center fielder Curt Flood's efforts to shake the foundations of major league baseball reminds readers that Flood holds a unique and important place in both baseball and American law as the player who challenged baseball's reserve clause and championed the cause of free agency. Simultaneous.