Book Review: Curt Flood in the Media: Baseball, Race, and the Demise of the Activist-Athlete, by Abraham Iqbal Khan

Abstract

Curt Flood in the Media: Baseball, Race, and the Demise of the Activist-Athlete. Abraham Iqbal Khan. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012. 208 pp. $55.00 hbk.Many communication efforts have gone astray largely because the organizers have thought primarily about the short-term consequences of what they did and said. They focused on handling crises or fending off threats without regard to thinking long-term about basic principles. As a result, the organizations involved have won battles but lost wars.This volume reports a case of losing a battle but winning a war. Curt Flood, a star outfielder with the St. Louis Cardinals, challenged Major League Baseball's reserve clause in the fall of 1969. That clause in a player's contract made him the property of the team he played for, in perpetuity, unless and until the team released, sold, or traded him.Flood lost his appeal in the courts, including a 5-3 decision by the U.S. Supreme Court. He sat out the 1970 season, apparently contributing to a decline in skill. He then retired after playing only thirteen games in 1971. However, the reserve clause was doomed by the public uproar that the case had caused. Many said Flood led the way to economic justice for blacks much as Jackie Robinson had paved the way for them to play in the big leagues in 1947. Some even referred to the Cardinal star as a Abraham Lincoln.In 1974, an arbitrator granted free agency-the right to negotiate with other teams-to pitchers Andy Messersmith of the Los Angeles Dodgers and Dave McNally of the Montreal Expos. Both had sat out a year. And, in 1976, club owners agreed to a modification of the reserve clause that allowed players to negotiate with other teams after playing for six years with one club.This book, Curt Flood in the Media: Baseball, Race, and the Demise of the Activist- Athlete, presents a rhetorical analysis of media coverage of the Flood case and its context by Abraham Iqbal Khan, an assistant professor of communication and Africana studies at the University of South Florida. Khan looked at the mainstream media (pri- marily the New York Times), sports publications (especially the Sporting News), and the black press in America (with special emphasis on the Chicago Defender and Baltimore Afro-American). He also quoted at length academic writing about blacks in athletics-particularly sociologist Harry Edwards-and Flood's own memoir, The Way It Is.Khan notes that Jackie Robinson changed the status quo in baseball by assimilating with the white establishment. Called the patron saint of black activists, Robinson broke the color barrier when, with the encouragement of Dodgers owner Branch Rickey, he often turned the other cheek in the face of prejudice and discrimination. He illustrated a neo-liberal view-working within the system so blacks could advance by being represented in a single public sphere. Ultimately, according to this view, skin color should not matter.Robinson had little to say about politics. In testimony before the Red-hating House Un-American Activities Committee, he did take issue with a widely quoted statement by leftist activist Paul Robeson that black Americans would refuse to fight for their country if World War III were to break out because of the injustice they and their ancestors had suffered.In the 1960s and 1970s, America saw growing protests against various forms of injustice. Black athletes joined the fray. In an oft-noted case, U.S. sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos raised their fists, covered with black gloves, in giving a black- power salute on the medal stand at the 1968 summer Olympics in Mexico City. …