He played in three All-Star games and was a catalyst for the St. He won the Gold Glove Award, as the best defensive outfielder, seven years in a row. During his Major League career, which lasted from 1956 to 1969, Flood batted. In many cities, Black players couldn’t stay in the same hotels or eat in the same restaurants as their teammates.Ĭardinal outfielder Curt Flood leaps to make a spectacular catch in a game on Septemat Wrigley Field in Chicago.įlood used his anger at that bigotry to fuel his performance on the field. During his playing days in the minors and majors, Flood, like other Black ballplayers, faced racist taunts from fans and ostracism from some teammates. He told the crowd of 3,800 that he felt a personal responsibility to fight racial injustice. In February 1962, at Robinson’s invitation, the 24-year-old Flood traveled to Jackson, Miss., to speak at a rally organized by NAACP leader Medgar Evers.

For Curt, players’ rights and civil rights were part of the same idea.” He was particularly interested in the fact that SAG members had their own agents and lawyers, could negotiate with film studios over salaries, and could move to different studios-all things prohibited in Major League Baseball at the time.įlood, whose first season in the majors was a year after the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott, “was one of the first ballplayers to get involved with the civil rights movement,” said Pace Flood. “On our first date, over dinner in 1964, he quizzed me about the Screen Actors Guild,” recalled his widow, Judy Pace Flood, who was a well-known actress during the ’60s and ’70s.

Actress Judy Pace Flood attends the Los Angeles Premiere of HBO’s “The Curious Case of Curt Flood” at Museum Of Tolerance on Jin Los Angeles, California.Įven before the Major League Baseball Players’ Association (MLBPA) had any influence, Flood was an eager trade unionist.

Curt flood award