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
Well, remember, there was Jackie Robinson testifying.
There was Flood doing all those interviews.
And also, time has passed, right?
This is an era when public opinion is shifting in fairly broad ways in America, right?
The case starts in the late 60s.
It proceeds.
Now we're into the early 70s.
And it's pretty clear that over this period of time, people around the country have started to think differently about the reserve clause and about baseball.
And, I mean, I think the core of it is a lot of people started to see really the foolishness of treating baseball as something other than a business.
People stopped thinking of baseball players as players, as grown men playing a boys' game, and they started thinking of them as...
Workers.
And when you start thinking of baseball players as workers, the reserve clause kind of becomes ridiculous.
After the verdict comes out, papers around the country write editorials condemning the decision, taking the side of Curt Flood.
Yeah, that word ownership is clearly echoing that Curt Flood letter that kind of started the whole thing.
A poll taken around this time finds that popular opinion has, in fact, shifted dramatically.
At this point, by an overwhelming margin, people support Curt Flood and the players.
And, of course, the players see this shift, they feel this shift, and they take action.
A few players decide to test what the reserve clause really means.
Specifically, the clause says, if a player refuses to sign his new contract... These are the exact words.
And so the way people had read that language up to this point is...
Showing 341–360 of 1,476 · page 18 of 74
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