The Curt Flood Story: The Man Behind the Myth (review)

It has been thirty-five years since the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in Flood v. Kuhn. Perhaps this anniversary explains the appearance of no fewer than four major books on Curt Flood in the past two years. Although the Court ruled against Flood and affirmed the ruling of Justice Holmes in Federal Baseball (1922), as well as a number of subsequent cases, more firmly establishing baseball’s antitrust exemption, Flood v. Kuhn is generally seen as the beginning of the end for the reserve system in baseball. This has led many to credit Curt Flood with having laid the foundation or serving as a catalytic agent for the coming of free agency. Others have portrayed him as a martyr to that cause.

Flood himself did not reap the benefits of free agency, and indeed he sacrificed a great deal in challenging baseball’s privileged legal position. In the end, the decline of Flood’s fortunes was dramatic, although, as several authors have shown, this decline can be traced to many other problems in his life well beyond the ramifications of his decision to challenge baseball.

In a number of ways, Stuart Weiss’s biography of Curt Flood is the most interesting of the four books, particularly in its examination of Flood’s personality and his personal and public lives. Weiss’s work is also likely to be the most controversial of the four books.

For at least the first three-quarters of The Curt Flood Story, Stuart Weiss, historian and professor emeritus at Southern Illinois University, is unrelenting in his criticism of Flood’s personal life and habits. Even more critical is Weiss’s repeated charge that Curt Flood used the race card to explain everything that went wrong in his life, to attack many people who were quite supportive of him, and to excuse his own weaknesses of character. Weiss repeatedly claims that Flood’s self-pity was unjustified and that race was only one of a bundle of Flood’s problems. Weiss also traces Flood’s views to his mother’s influence.

Those who read on to the final chapters of the book will find an interesting and, by then, unexpected change in tone. Weiss seems to develop more sympathy for Flood and the tragedies that marked his life. Perhaps it is simply pity, but whatever it is, the judgmental and condemnatory attitude toward Flood softens considerably in the latter portion of the book.

Weiss has put together a fascinating portrait of Curt Flood. From Flood’s childhood in Oakland to his death in Los Angeles in January of 1997, Weiss tracks Flood’s life in considerable detail both on and off the field of play. He describes the key role Flood’s mother played in the formation of Curt’s personality, the tragic life of Curt’s brother Carl who was loved and admired by Curt, and the role of many significant and not-so-significant women in his life. Flood’s familial relationships were complex and often exploitative in a number of directions. His more serious relationships with women could be described in much the same way. Weiss dissects all of these.

Easily the most intriguing of these relationships was the one that Flood had with Marian Jorgensen. Flood was introduced to John and Marian Jorgensen by Jim Chambers, a high school teacher with whom Flood had developed a friendship. Flood bonded with the Jorgensens immediately, despite a two-generation age difference, and he was awed by the strength of their marriage, which he contrasted with his own. He also became extremely interested in John Jorgensen’s work as a designer and engraver, and when Jorgensen discovered Flood’s interest in painting, he asked Flood to join him and learn the art and craft of engraving.

John Jorgensen’s death at the hands of an axe murderer would eventually lead Flood to invite Marian to St. Louis, where she moved into his apartment...