Chapter 4: Geniuses Need Not Apply
According to the mythology in which they swaddle the minds of their customers and employees, the owners of major-league baseball are philanthropist. These dedicated men and women are custodians of a great tradition, the slightest neglect of which would plunge the entire United States into degradation.
Their gravest concern is the Good of the Game. With this in mind, they maintain constant vigil over the Integrity of the Game-it’s competitive honesty and fairness. And they cultivate the Image of the Game, having realized long ago that what the public perceives, or thinks it perceives, need not always correspond to reality. If reality becomes an inconvenience, it can be camouflaged.
Everyone in baseball plays a structured role in the promotional rites the emphasize the Integrity, enhance the Image, and consolidate the Good of the Game. On Camera or within earshot of working reporters, the behaved player is an actor who projects blissful, contentment, inexhaustible optimism and abiding gratitude.
“I’ll sweep out the clubhouse to stay here,” he says. “I love the game. I owe everything to baseball. I am thankful to this grand organization for giving me my big chance. I’m in love with this town and its wonderful fans. Even though I had kind of a slow start, I think I’m getting it all together now. I expect to have a big year.”
The only approved posture is one of tail-wagging thanks for the opportunities provided by the employer. Few active players feel anything like such gratitude, and none has reason to. Baseball employment is too insecure for that. Not many players deliver their ceremonial recitations without a sense of embarrassment.
-Curt Flood, The Way It Is.
February is three things: cold, Black History Month and the start of Spring Training. It’s around this time of year I find myself, without fail, thinking of two of my favorite people. Curt Flood, All-Star centerfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, and Ashley, first chair flutist for Menchville High School. Days before Curt Flood’s life story gave me a perspective on sacrifice and self-worth that would kick-start my nearly disastrous but much needed “question authority” phase, Ashley gave me Curt’s autobiography. Today that book is, without hyperbole, my oldest possession. I’ve purged everything else from those years now decades old. The Way It Is endures in an unassuming position on my bookcase; it’s wisdom resting reassuringly within reach, it’ story waiting patiently to be retold.
For those unfamiliar with the man, Curt Flood was in his most misunderstood form a baseball player. In reality he was a Renaissance Man at a time when America was not ready for more Renaissance. On the heels of the Civil Rights movement and in the midst of the Vietnam War the nation was seeking comfort in places were its roots were deepest. Naturally Major League Baseball was such a place, and in the same years that Willie Mays and Roberto Clemente roamed the outfield for the Nation League All-Star team, Curt Flood started alongside them .
He was the type of guy that was blessed the rarest and most frustrating type of talent: he could do whatever he wanted. He was an intellectual and an artist who loved painting and photography who just also happened to be a world class athlete. His autobiography details his life leading up to and in the months after his trade from St. Louis to Philadelphia. It was a trade that he refused to accept. He could not accept being a commodity traded by men that claimed to own him. He would go on to sue to become baseball’s first free agent.
Curt Flood lost his case after the United States Supreme Court ruled against him due mainly to MLB’s Anti-trust exemption. In the process he also threw away what could have been a Hall of Fame career in order to stand up for what he knew was right, what he knew was his right. A few years later baseball’s first true free agents negotiated new deals with the highest bidding teams. Curt Flood would never benefit monetarily from his historic stance against Major League Baseball. He died in 1997, the same year Pedro Martinez became the highest paid player in baseball when he signed a 6 year deal for $75M.
The most fascinating part of the case to me was always that it wasn’t about money, but rather principle. Flood was already the highest paid player on the team, a fact that may have lead to his being traded in the first place. At the time baseball was America’s preeminent sport and the fear spread far and wide by sportswriters was that free agency would ruin the game to the point of collapse. Today baseball is no longer the preeminent sport in America. That distinction undoubtedly belongs to the NFL . Like MLB in the late 1960’s, the National Football League is on the verge of a renaissance. There isn’t one Renaissance Man in this new iteration however, there are two. The two couldn’t be any more different.
Russell Wilson is a quarterback in a quarterback’s league. His slight stature and gentle demeanor in front of the camera belies the icy heart of an assassin. He will never be the biggest guy on the field, or the fastest, or the strongest. While he will never wow you with his measurables, he is a flat out winner. People like him. They trust him to sell them tablets and headphones. His names translates to “Guy with two first names”. He’s the good guy.
Ndamukong Suh is a defensive tackle in a quarterback’s league. He is massive and imposing with a semi-permanent snarl that only disappears during commercials. He will always be the biggest, strongest guy on the field. He is a madman with no regard for the rules or those too squeamish to witness horror in 1080p. He is Maximus bellowing “ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?” to the masses, carnage incarnate. People do not like him. His name translates to “House of Spears”. He’s the bad guy.
The two of them could be the oddest couple on the planet, the most polar of opposites. They do share a few things in common however. Their most immediate common ground is they are both going to sign new contracts this offseason. It will be interesting to see how the process unfolds because it will change the landscape of the league forever.
In the case of Wilson, he is negotiating what could be the first fully guaranteed contract in league history. The reason that is groundbreaking goes beyond the fact that it would be the first of it’s kind, it’s deeper impact could be that it could be for less money that what he would get in a non-guaranteed deal. For a quarterback of Russell Wilson’s pedigree and resume to take less than full market value in exchange for a guaranteed contract would create a massive bubble in salaries across the league. In a world where $20M per year in perfectly acceptable for a quarterback regardless of playoff wins, Russell Wilson could disrupt the entire model with a pen stroke. The Players Association has to be nervous about this. The teams around the league have to be nervous as well. While Seattle and Wilson have no obligation to anyone other than themselves they could put the rest of the league in a very difficult spot with a stroke of the pen by doing what is simply in their mutual best interest, consequence to everyone else be damned. It will be interesting to see if they can get a deal done.
There will be no one more interested in seeing that deal done than Ndamukong Suh. For all of the talk about Suh’s on-field issues, he is highly intellectual. He’s a thinking man’s man. While people could not figure out why he was not getting a contract extension done last summer, he knew all along that the best deal would come from hitting the free agent market. While he could not have known Russell Wilson would be looking at trying to get a guaranteed contract, now that the cat is out of the bag I fully expect him to take a wait and see approach. If fully guaranteed contracts become a thing, he’s going to want one. He’s played at a higher level longer than Russell Wilson has, albeit without a Super Bowl to show for it. He has spoken openly about wanting a contract as massive as he is. Unlike Curt Flood, this is DEFINITELY about the money. The fact that is comes at a time when it could be a massively destabilizing force in the NFL would only be icing on the cake for a guy that has no love lost for the league office.
Reading that passage above from Curt Flood’s book always strikes a nerve with me. He was writing about the atmosphere surrounding baseball in the 60s and 70s but it sounds eerily like what we hear today regarding athletes from the NBA to the NFL to the NCAA. The NFL must protect The Shield at all times. NCAA sports must uphold the integrity of amateurism. the fans must be feed clichés and half-lies for Basketball Reasons. When Marshawn Lynch or Richard Sherman attempts to break away from the faceless identities the League imposes on them the media lapdogs instantly morph into attack dogs. The opportunities to break away from these endless refrains stop the same old dance are few and far between. Such an opportunity is upon us this offseason. In a few shorts weeks we’ll know how much of a Renaissance will be ushered into the NFL, the last of the major professional sport leagues without guaranteed contracts. For the sake of the players, their families and everyone that sacrificed to get to this moment, I hope they seize this opportunity.
The Way It Is isnt’ The Way It Has To Be.
The Twice
A Guy....Who Likes Sports, Anime, pickled carrots, and who actually saw Stevie Wonder drive. Really.
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