Robert Smith

And after the union head tells Flood how he'll probably lose his case and be ostracized from baseball, Flood says, OK, but if I do win, will it help other players in the future?

And the union head says, yeah, it will.

And Flood says, that's good enough for me.

Let's do it.

He decides to sue Major League Baseball.

you find a guy who's kind of half politician, half lawyer.

Yeah, that'll do it.

So the union finds this lawyer named Arthur Goldberg.

He had been a former Supreme Court justice who stepped down to be the ambassador to the UN, which truly seems like a step down, I guess.

Not back in those days, yeah.

Goldberg says he'll take the case if the union just pays his expenses.

And Goldberg and Flood come up with a strategy that is this.

They're not just going to fight the case in court.

They're going to fight the case in what journalists love to call the court of public opinion.

They're going to try and convince America that the reserve clause is wrong.

You're out of order.

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.