Curt Flood quotes

Whatever I contributed to the unique morale of the Cardinals was part of this growth, and so, of course, was my decision to have it out in public with the owners of organized baseball. (Curt Flood)
I lost money, coaching jobs, a shot at the Hall of Fame.
Curt Flood
People try to make a Greek tragedy of my life, and they can't do it. I'm too happy.
Curt Flood
Baseball was socially relevant, and so was my rebellion against it.
Curt Flood
The baseball establishment is permissive about revelry.
Curt Flood
I was told by the general manager that a white player had received a higher raise than me. Because white people required more money to live than black people. That is why I wasn't going to get a raise.
Curt Flood
And I'd be lying if I told you that as a black man in baseball I hadn't gone through worse times than my teammates.
Curt Flood
I'll also say, yes, I think the change in black consciuosness in recent years has made me more sensitive to injustice in every area of my life.
Curt Flood
I'd often wondered what would I do if I were ever traded, because it happened many, many times.
Curt Flood
If you destroyed the underpinnings of this great American sport, you are a hated, ugly, detestable person.
Curt Flood
My guys, my colleagues didn't stand up with me. And I can't make any excuse for them. Had we shown any amount of solidarity, if the superstars had stood up and said 'We're with Curt Flood,' if the superstars had walked into the courtroom in New York and made their presence known, I think that the owners would have gotten the message very clearly and given me a chance to win that case. (Curt Flood)
After twelve years in the major leagues, I do not feel I am a piece of property to be bought and sold irrespective of my wishes. I believe that any system which produces that result violates my basic rights as a citizen and is inconsistent with the laws of the United States and of the several States.
Curt Flood
I'm a human being I'm not a piece of property. I am not a consignment of goods.
Curt Flood
I guess you really have to understand who that person, who that Curt Flood was. I'm a child of the 60s. I'm a man of the 60s. During that period of time, this country was coming apart at the seams. We were in Southeast Asia...Good men were dying for America and for the Constitution. In the Southern part of the United States we were marching for civil rights and Dr. King had been assasinated, and we lost the Kennedys. And to think that merely because I was a professional baseball player, I could ignore what was going on outside the walls of Busch Stadium [was] truly hypocrisy, and now I found that all of those rights that these great Americans were dying for, I didn't have in my own profession.
Curt Flood
I often wondered what I would do if I were ever traded because it happened many, many times, and it was "part of the game." And then suddenly it happened to me. I was leaving probably one of the greatest organizations in the world to at that time what was probably the least liked, and by God, this is America, and I'm a human being. I'm not a piece of property. I'm not a consignment of goods.
Curt Flood