Robert Smith
speaker
1,476 appearances
11 recordings
6 series
first heard Dec 2024
last heard 8 Jul
Robert Smith’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 6 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
So their first move is not to file the lawsuit, but in fact to send a letter to the commissioner of baseball, a guy named Bowie Kuhn.
It's 1969 when they send this letter.
And the language in the letter is pretty clearly invoking something bigger than Curt Flood's case.
It's invoking the civil rights movement.
Robert, you want to read a little bit from the letter?
Yeah, and then in the second paragraph, Flood says he wants to talk to other teams about playing for them.
A week later, Bowie Kuhn calls Flood at home and reads his response, the league's response, to Kurt Flood's letter.
The court of public opinion is in session.
And around this time, Flood does this interview with Howard Cosell, the famous sportscaster.
And Cosell says some version of what a lot of commentators are saying about Flood's case, which is essentially...
In this letter, you say you're not a piece of property to be bought and sold, but you're getting rich playing baseball.
That is probably Kurt Flood's most famous quote.
There's a biography of Flood by Brad Snyder that was a key source for this show that is actually called A Well-Paid Slave.
And most people agreed with the owners.
A poll around this time found that 69% of people thought the reserve clause was necessary for baseball.
So Flood is losing the case in the court of public opinion when his case goes to the court of law, the court court in Manhattan in 1970.
And Flood's lawyers know they need a good witness to change public opinion.
But nobody who's playing baseball at the time wants to testify because they're too scared, right?
Why would they?
But you know who agrees to testify?
Showing 241–260 of 1,476 · page 13 of 74
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