A Well-Paid Slave; Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports

New York: Viking, 2006. First Edition. First Printing. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. [8]. 472 pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. A Georgetown law professor, Brad Snyder teaches constitutional law, civil procedure, legal justice, twentieth century American legal history, and sports law. He has written two critically acclaimed books about baseball and numerous law review articles about constitutional history including the Supreme Court's mishandling of the case of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg; the divided jurisprudence of Chief Justice John Roberts based on his judicial clerkships with Henry Friendly and William Rehnquist. Curtis Charles Flood (1938 - 1997) was an American baseball player. He was a center fielder who played 15 seasons in the major leagues for the Cincinnati Reds, St. Louis Cardinals, and Washington Senators. Flood was a three-time All-Star, a Gold Glove winner for seven consecutive seasons, and batted over .300 in six seasons. Flood was one of the pivotal figures in sport's labor history when he refused to accept a trade to another team. The book tells the story of Curt Flood, an all-star center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals who rejected a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies and took baseball to the Supreme Court. Flood sued baseball over the "reserve clause," a contractual provision that bound the players to their teams for life. Although the Court narrowly ruled against Flood, his lawsuit paved the way for free agency. The New York Times Book Review said: "Generations of ballplayers - Curt Flood's children - have never honored him properly. But with his fine book, Brad Snyder surely has." George F. Will said: "Brad Snyder shows why Flood was Dred Scott in spikes." The Washington Post named A Well-Paid Slave among the top 100 books of 2006. In 2011, Snyder and his book were prominently featured in the HBO Sports documentary, The Curious Case of Curt Flood. In 2015, the Huffington Post named A Well-Paid Slave one of the 50 greatest baseball books of all time.