A Well-Paid Slave

White-haired, diabetic, and going blind, Jackie Robinson looked like the oldest 51-year-old man on the planet. He had suffered a mild heart attack a few years earlier. Diabetes had destroyed the circulation in his legs. His doctor had given him only two to three years to live. Robinson walked in his distinctive pigeon-toed gait down the center aisle of Judge Cooper’s crowded courtroom with the help of a cane. To Flood, however, Robinson may as well have been Superman. As he made his way down the aisle, Robinson stopped at the table for plaintiff’s counsel. He shook Flood’s hand and whispered words of encouragement into Flood’s ear. Tears welled in Flood’s eyes.

Flood knew that he was doing the right thing. It all seemed worth it now—giving up his baseball career, turning his back on more than $90,000, the hate mail at home, and the humiliation two days earlier on the witness stand. It all seemed worth it because his hero had come to testify on his behalf, to help Flood make professional athletes more free than they had been in Robinson’s day.

A hush fell over the courtroom as Robinson approached the witness stand. Aside from his 1962 Hall of Fame induction and a stint as a color commentator for ABC television in 1965, Robinson had exiled himself from baseball. He railed against the game’s refusal to hire black coaches and managers. He criticized Frank Robinson and Willie Mays for refusing to speak out on racial issues. He clashed with Bob Feller during the game’s centennial celebration at the 1969 All-Star Game in Washington over the lack of minorities in baseball management. The racism in base-ball that Robinson had experienced beginning in 1946 had taken on new forms, and he saw no one willing to confront them. “I don’t know if anyone could get me back into baseball today, where I would have to deal with the kind of people that I feel are associated with baseball,” Robinson said in 1966. “I think there is a narrow-minded, bigoted group of people who believe that the only way the Negro should get opportunities is if he is willing to go along with what they say—‘Don’t rock the boat.’ ”

Robinson admired boat rockers such as Flood and his former Cardinals teammate Bill White because “when there’s an issue Curt Flood is ready; Bill White is ready. But there are not enough Curt Floods and Bill Whites.” In the February 15 issue of Jet, Robinson had spoken out on Flood’s behalf: “I think Curt is doing a service to all players in the leagues, especially for the younger players coming up who are not superstars. All he is asking for is the right to negotiate. It doesn’t surprise me that he had the courage to do it. He’s a very sensitive man concerned about the rights of everybody. We need men of integrity like Curt Flood and Bill Russell who are involved in the area of civil rights and who are not willing to sit back and let Mr. Charlie dictate their needs and wants for them or spread the message for them.”

An ardent civil rights advocate, Robinson had raised money for the NAACP and the SCLC, participated in the March on Washington, and marched in Birmingham. He was an integrationist who clashed publicly with younger, more militant black activists including Malcolm X. A registered independent, he often supported Republican candidates because he believed blacks should be represented in both political parties. He had campaigned for Richard Nixon during the 1960 presidential election and again two years later when Nixon ran for governor of California. He had served as one of six deputy directors of Nelson Rockefeller’s presidential campaign in 1964, worked on Rockefeller’s reelection campaign for governor in 1966, and that same year was appointed the governor’s special assistant for community affairs. Robinson had come to regret his earlier support of Nixon, who was not as progressive on civil rights issues as Robinson had been led to believe. After Rockefeller lost the 1968 Republican presidential nomination to Nixon, Robinson endorsed Democratic nominee Hubert Humphrey. In politics, as in life, Jackie Robinson was his own man.

Robinson also was active in business, with mixed results. For seven years after his playing career ended, he had worked for Chock full o’ Nuts as a vice president and director of personnel. Robinson’s main function for the coffee shop chain was to serve as an intermediary to prevent its employees from unionizing. He had helped start a black-controlled bank, Freedom National Bank, and the Jackie Robinson Construction Corporation that built low- and middle-income housing. Nonetheless, he and his wife, Rachel, a psychiatric nurse, struggled to make ends meet.

After meeting with Marvin Miller, Robinson agreed to see Iverson at his office at Proteus Foods, Inc. Iverson thought the cramped office in a grimy building was not befitting a man of Robinson’s stature. Although nominally a vice president, Robinson had no decision-making authority. His job was to encourage people to invest in fish and seafood fast-food restaurants in low-income neighborhoods. He was paid $10,000 a year plus some small stock options and a $500 bonus for each franchise he sold through personal contacts. In July, the company fired him a few months before it filed for bankruptcy. “It had seemed clear that he didn’t have a whole lot to do. . . . It was kind of sad that this was what he was doing now,” Iverson said. “And frankly, because of the system, he had to do it to make a living he needed to make.”

Robinson showed no fear of alienating the Lords of Baseball. He had retired after the 1956 season when the Dodgers sent him to the Giants. He understood the injustice of the reserve clause but did not purport to be an expert on reserve clause issues. He had agreed to testify, he told Miller, because he “thought Flood was a courageous young man.” Miller knew that Robinson’s testimony came with some baggage. He reminded Robinson that he had told a 1958 Senate subcommittee, “I am highly in favor of the reserve clause.” The owners, Miller said, would use Robinson’s prior testimony to discredit him. Robinson was unfazed. “I was young and ignorant at the time,” he told Miller. “That is what they told me, and that is what I said. But I know differently now, and I won’t hesitate to say so.”

Robinson discussed his career with the Dodgers: his $600-a-month salary in 1946 with the Montreal Royals, the Dodgers’ Triple-A farm club; his $5,000 salary his first year with the Dodgers in 1947; his 1949 Most Valuable Player Award; his .311 lifetime batting average; his six World Series appearances; and his 1962 induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Yet he was not certain that his lifetime batting average was .311 or that his highest single-season batting average of .342 came in 1949.

Robinson discussed his trade from the Dodgers to the Giants after the 1956 season. The Dodgers sold Robinson for $30,000 plus pitcher Dick Littlefield. Dodgers owner Walter O’Malley wanted Robinson out of the organization because Robinson adored O’Malley’s nemesis, Branch Rickey, the team’s former part owner and general manager. Trading Robinson to their National League rivals, the Giants, was the ultimate slap in the face. Robinson had already decided to retire and accept a $30,000 offer from Chock full o’ Nuts “because, in my view, a black man had very little chance in organized baseball to go from the playing ranks to the front office to the managerial role regardless of whether he had any ability alone or not, and I had to protect my family as best as I possibly could.” After the trade, Robinson nearly changed his mind when the Giants raised their initial salary offer of $35,000 to $50,000 or more (he had never made a salary of more than $42,500 with the Dodgers and had made only $33,000 in 1956 after accepting several salary cuts). Dodgers general manager Buzzie Bavasi was angry that Robinson had kept his retirement a secret in order to sell the story to Look magazine. According to Robinson, Bavasi’s “statement that the only thing that I was doing when I was refusing to play was trying to get more money so angered me that nothing would have kept me in baseball at that particular time.”

Robinson discussed the reserve clause with hurt, anger, and sensitivity. During his first two seasons with the Dodgers, he had been spiked, spit on, thrown at, and called every nasty racial epithet in the book, but had kept his promise to Rickey that he would not fight back. During the 1949 season, Robinson began to assert himself more. He had been fighting back on and off the field ever since.

Goldberg asked Robinson his opinion about the reserve clause. Robinson’s response anchored the stories about Flood’s trial in the next day’s editions of the New York Times, the Daily News, and the Post: “[A]nything that is one-sided in this country is wrong, and I think the reserve clause is a one-sided thing in favor of the owners, and I think it certainly should at least be modified to give a player an opportunity to have some control over his destiny. Whenever you have one-sided systems, in my view, it leads to serious, serious problems, and I think that unless there is a change in the reserve clause that it is going to lead to a serious strike in terms of the ballplayers. . . . I sincerely believe that the reserve clause is so one-sided in favor of the owners that the players don’t really have control over their own destinies.”

Robinson said the reserve clause harmed younger players, especially those who since 1965 had been assigned to major league teams through a leaguewide draft of the best high school and college prospects. He added that “the reserve clause does not affect the $90,000 ballplayer as much as it affects that guy who sits upon the bench.”

Robinson discussed the careers of three of his former Dodgers teammates—Don Zimmer, Eddie Miksis, and Don Hoak—who wasted many seasons on the Dodgers’ bench when they could have been starters on other teams. Zimmer, Robinson said, would have been an extremely good shortstop, but for four years he was stuck behind All-Star Pee Wee Reese. Because of the reserve clause, Zimmer lost the prime of his career as the Dodgers organization’s insurance policy in case Reese ever got hurt. Miksis backed up Robinson at second base and then Hoak backed up Robinson at third. Of Hoak, Robinson said the reserve clause “hurt his chances for a few years to become a better ballplayer, to become a person to make more money in the game.”

Robinson ran afoul of Judge Cooper only one time on direct examination. Goldberg asked Robinson whether baseball as a sport would be affected if the reserve clause was modified. “I would like to say first—I don’t know whether this is in the rules—I don’t consider baseball a sport,” Robinson said. “I think it is a big business, first of all.” Hughes objected to the answer as “unresponsive.” Cooper asked if Hughes moved to strike it. Hughes said yes, and Cooper struck the answer about baseball being big business because “that is the issue that I must resolve.” The Supreme Court had never created a distinction between professional sports and other for-profit businesses; it had simply decided that the business of baseball was exempt from the antitrust laws. And Cooper, whether he was willing to admit it or not, was bound by those decisions.

On cross-examination, Hughes predictably asked Robinson if he had testified in 1958 before a Senate subcommittee. Robinson said he could not remember; he had testified before the Senate many times. Hughes then read one sentence on page 295 of Robinson’s 1958 testimony in which Robinson had said: “I am highly in favor of the reserve clause.” Robinson said he could not remember saying it. Nor did the rereading of the sentence refresh his recollection. Hughes kept badgering Robinson about his prior testimony. The most he could get Robinson to admit was that “I could have said that.” Robinson was as stubborn on the witness stand as he had been on the ball field.

Goldberg finally objected that Robinson had been asked and answered the question. Goldberg suggested putting the entire testimony into the record. Hughes evaded the suggestion. Robinson indicated that he had made additional comments before the Senate, but Goldberg failed to follow up on this line of questioning on redirect.

Two witnesses and a lunch recess later, Goldberg realized that he should have read the entire paragraph into the record. Robinson’s testimony on page 295, which Goldberg read aloud for the court after lunch, said:

Hughes, who had been guilty of taking Robinson’s statement completely out of context, could only muster: “Could I have the book, please.”

I think they should in some way be able to express themselves as to whether or not they do want to play for a certain ball club. I am highly in favor of the reserve clause. I do not want to get this out that I don’t believe there should be some control. But on the other hand, I don’t think the owners should have all of the control. I think that there should be something that a ballplayer himself could say that would have some effect upon his particular position with a ballclub.

As it stands now, the players, in my opinion, don’t really have the opportunity to express themselves in a way they should be able to.

Goldberg’s failure to catch the mistake at the time of Robinson’s testimony was another result of his not doing enough trial preparation and thus not being as quick on his feet as a trial lawyer should be. Read in its entirety, Robinson’s 1958 Senate testimony was consistent with his testimony at Flood’s trial. Robinson had testified before the Senate that the reserve clause hurt bench players on stronger teams because those players could be starters on weaker teams. “So I believe that after five, six years, or so, that a player should have the right to express himself and perhaps go to some other club,” Robinson had told the Senate.

Not even Goldberg could prevent Robinson from enrapturing the courtroom during cross-examination and on redirect. Hughes asked Robinson what the reserve clause meant to him. “It means to me that a player is tied to a ballclub for life,” Robinson said. “That’s all it means to me.” On redirect, Goldberg asked Robinson about the type of reserve clause modification that he favored. Robinson said that a player should be able to ask for the chance to improve his condition with a new team “after a certain number of years.”

Robinson concluded his testimony with a ringing endorsement of Flood: “It takes a tremendous amount of courage for any individual— and that’s why I admire Mr. Flood so much for what he is doing—to stand up against something that is appalling to him, and I think that they ought to give a player the chance to be able to be a man in situations like this, and I don’t believe this is what has happened. Give the players the opportunity to be able to say to themselves, ‘I have a certain value and I can place it on myself.’ ”

For Flood, Robinson’s “soliloquy . . . sent chills up and down my spine.” His hero had just stood up for him in open court for taking on the baseball establishment just as Robinson had done 23 years earlier. Flood had endured similar things in the southern minor leagues that Robinson had endured with the Dodgers. He had overcome racism in the Reds organization and with Solly Hemus to become an All-Star and Gold Glove center fielder. He had experienced the thrill of winning two World Series. He had ascended to the upper levels of baseball’s salary scale. Now it was Flood’s turn to take what Robinson had taught him over the years and to stand up and be counted. Robinson had just given Flood the encouragement he needed to fight on.

Flood was not the only one inspired by Robinson’s testimony. As soon as he excused Robinson from the witness stand, Judge Cooper called for a short recess and brought lawyers from both sides into his chambers. He invited Kuhn, Feeney, and Cronin. He also invited Robinson. The defense thought that Cooper had a problem with Robinson’s testimony. Instead, Cooper requested both sides’ permission to ask Robinson for an autograph for his grandson. No one objected, and the starstruck Cooper received Robinson’s signature. Robinson was not the last celebrity in the courtroom that day.

Hank Greenberg knew about discrimination. The 6-foot-4¹⁄2 - inch Detroit Tigers slugger battled anti-Semitism his entire career, particularly in 1938 when he chased Babe Ruth’s single-season home run record and finished two shy of Ruth’s mark with 58. Despite losing more than four seasons to military service in World War II, he finished his 13-year career with 331 home runs and 1,276 RBIs. Before anyone had ever heard of Sandy Koufax, Greenberg had been baseball’s most legendary Jewish player. In 1947, Greenberg’s last season and Jackie Robinson’s first, Robinson collided with the big Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman on a close play at first. During Robinson’s next time on base, Greenberg asked Robinson if he was okay and told him to ignore Greenberg’s stupid, racist teammates. “Stick in there,” Greenberg said. “You’re doing fine. Keep your chin up.” He even invited Robinson to dinner. “Class tells,” Robinson said at the time. “It sticks out all over Mr. Greenberg.”

Greenberg also knew about the evils of the reserve clause. He had been in the Tigers organization since 1930 and came back in his first full season after World War II to lead the American League in home runs (44) and RBIs (127) in 1946. But the Tigers no longer wanted to pay Greenberg’s $75,000 salary in 1947, so they put him on waivers. They refused to allow any of their American League rivals to claim him and then sold him for the $10,000 waiver price to the Pirates. Greenberg heard about the sale on the radio and then received a one-paragraph telegram making it official. The 36-year-old Greenberg informed Pirates owner John Galbreath that he was retiring. Galbreath talked Greenberg out of it by agreeing to the following conditions: (1) moving in the left-field fences at Forbes Field to 335 feet; (2) allowing Greenberg to fly instead of take trains and to have his own room on the road; and (3) raising Greenberg’s salary from $75,000 to $100,000. Greenberg agreed to play for just one more season, provided the Pirates agreed to release him at the end of the year. “Mr. Galbreath,” Greenberg said, “I’m never going to go through the shock of being traded or sold like a piece of merchandise like what just happened to me with Detroit.”

True to his word, Greenberg retired after one season in Pittsburgh. Unlike Jackie Robinson, he was welcomed into management. Bill Veeck, the maverick owner of the Cleveland Indians, made Greenberg the team’s vice president in 1948, farm director in 1949, general manager in 1950, and part owner and director in 1955. Greenberg sold his interest in the Indians in 1958 and the following year was part of Veeck’s group that bought the Chicago White Sox. Greenberg worked as the team’s general manager until 1961. Two years later, he left the White Sox and baseball. In 1956, he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. Greenberg lived a good life. He had married Caral Gimbel, whose family owned the Gimbel Brothers and Saks Fifth Avenue department stores. After they divorced, Greenberg remarried and moved to Southern California. His son, Stephen, became the deputy commissioner of base-ball under Fay Vincent.

Greenberg, knowing that it meant the end of his ties to Major League Baseball, had been reluctant to testify for Flood. “Greenberg said he agrees with our position on the reserve clause, but he had some qualms about testifying, and asked to think it over,” Max Gitter and Topkis wrote in a May 7 memo to Goldberg. “Perhaps a phone call from you would resolve his doubts in our favor.” Goldberg called Greenberg. Whatever Goldberg said to one of the other most prominent Jewish-American figures of the 20th century, it must have worked.

Healthy, tanned, and with dark, slicked-back hair, Greenberg was a physically imposing yet soft-spoken witness. As emotional as Robinson was on the witness stand, Greenberg, speaking in the thick Bronx accent of his boyhood, was calm, reserved, and almost aloof. He discussed his career with the Tigers, the telegram he received announcing his trade to the Pirates, and his part ownership of the Indians and the White Sox.

Greenberg testified that “the reserve clause as it is constituted now and has been is obsolete and antiquated. . . . It seems to me that the times have changed and that the owners and the players are going to have to get together and work more harmoniously and with a more cooperative spirit so that the game can go forward, and the first step or the last step is the reserve clause in the contract.”

“[I]t’s a unilateral contract, Judge,” Greenberg replied. “The ballplayer has no choice other than accept the terms offered to him, because he can’t play elsewhere.” Greenberg had been rankled by the Tigers organization’s callousness in selling him to the Pirates. After 17 years with Detroit, Greenberg felt that he deserved some consideration about where the Tigers were going to send him. Greenberg empathized with Flood: “I think that baseball must recognize that, that the player has built up some equity in playing with the club over a period of years, that he has a family, has friends, has business associations in the city, and they can’t just arbitrarily say, ‘You play in Philadelphia next season.’ ”

Greenberg, who believed that the reserve clause should be replaced by a contract for a term of years, helped both the owners and players on cross-examination. He conceded that both sides should sit down and negotiate reserve clause modifications—undercutting Flood’s lawsuit and supporting the owners’ argument that this issue should be resolved through labor negotiation. Greenberg, however, added that he was not a member of the Players Association and had met Marvin Miller for the first time that day. Greenberg also admitted that the owners had some equity interest in the players they developed and that it had taken him three minor league and two major league seasons to round into peak form. But, as a former owner, Greenberg said: “I would be perfectly willing to invest in baseball tomorrow if we had no reserve clause.”

After Greenberg’s testimony, Marvin Miller retook the witness stand to testify about the owners’ refusal to negotiate about the reserve clause. American League counsel Sandy Hadden cross-examined Miller after lunch. Miller conceded that the owners had compromised on a number of other issues in the upcoming basic agreement, just not on the reserve clause.

Flood’s legal team called one more star witness on this second day of Flood’s trial: pitcher-turned-author Jim Brosnan. A major league relief pitcher for nine years, in 1954 and from 1956 to 1963, Brosnan spent his offseasons working for a Chicago advertising firm but really wanted to be a writer. He dared to read books in the clubhouse. His teammates called the bespectacled pitcher “Professor.” After writing several magazine articles for Robert Creamer at Sports Illustrated, Brosnan kept a diary while splitting the 1959 season between the St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. The result was The Long Season, the first baseball book to capture the way ballplayers really talked. Although tame by modern standards, The Long Season pulled back the curtain on life inside the clubhouse. Brosnan cast a critical eye on his fellow players and coaches. One of his main targets was Flood’s old nemesis, Cardinals manager Solly Hemus. Brosnan wrote that Hemus “tried too hard. He tends to overmanage and he gets panicky for no good reason at all.” Hemus later said of Brosnan: “He’s the first pitcher I ever heard of who won nine games and felt he had to write a book about it.” Literary critics loved The Long Season, which became a bestseller. Brosnan followed it up with Pennant Race, a diary of the Reds’ 1961 season.

Brosnan’s literary success curtailed his baseball career. The Reds’ new general manager, Bill DeWitt, objected to Brosnan’s books and magazine articles. NBC offered Brosnan $4,000 to be miked for a baseball documentary. DeWitt demanded prior approval of the script. NBC said not even President Kennedy received prebroadcast approval. DeWitt prevented Brosnan from doing the documentary by invoking paragraph 3(c) of the Uniform Player Contract, which said:

DeWitt withheld his consent. Brosnan wrote to commissioner Ford Frick, National League president Warren Giles, and Players Association part-time adviser Judge Robert Cannon for help. No one responded.

The Player further agrees that during the playing season he will not make public appearances, participate in radio or television programs or permit his picture to be taken or write or sponsor newspaper or magazine articles or sponsor commercial products without the written consent of the Club, which shall not be withheld except in the reasonable interests of the Club or professional baseball.

“Obviously,” Brosnan replied, “but so is the reserve clause.” DeWitt traded Brosnan in May 1963 to the Chicago White Sox. White Sox general manager Ed Short met Brosnan at the airport and said: “You can’t write here, either.” After Brosnan finished the 1963 season with a 3-9 record, 3.13 ERA, and 14 saves, Short tried to cut Brosnan’s contract from $32,000 to $25,000 and refused to allow him to make up the difference by writing two magazine articles. Brosnan turned down the White Sox contract offer. Short responded by releasing him in February and boasting that “Brosnan can be had for a dollar.” No teams called. After deciding against moving to Europe, Brosnan took out a tiny ad in the March 7, 1964, edition of the Sporting News. “Situation Sought. Bullpen operator, experience.” After breaking down his statistics, Brosnan’s ad concluded: “Free agent. Negotiable terms available. Respectfully request permission to pursue harmless avocation of professional writer.” Only the unconventional Kansas City Athletics owner Charlie Finley responded to Brosnan’s ad, but he wanted the pitcher to take a $5,000 pay cut. Brent Musburger, then writing for the Chicago American, told Brosnan that he was being blackballed. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the White Sox of censorship. Brosnan worked in 1964 and 1965 as a television and radio sports commentator and after that became a full-time freelance writer. He wrote magazine articles about baseball and had started to write a novel.

Bill Iverson called Brosnan May 1 at his home in Morton Grove, Illinois, and asked if Brosnan would come to New York to testify for Flood. Brosnan agreed. On the plane flight from Chicago to New York, Brosnan questioned his decision. “Why am I doing this?” Brosnan thought. “Our people asked me to do it. And we’ve got some weapons that we’ve never had before. The least I could do was put my ten words in, or two words.”

Brosnan barely knew Flood, even though they had been teammates for half of the 1958 and 1959 seasons with the Cardinals and they both detested Solly Hemus, but Brosnan knew how cruel the game could be to players who dared to be different. He saw Flood’s fight against the reserve clause as a noble one. “I didn’t perceive this as a race thing,” Brosnan recalled. “I perceived it as a player thing. I had been thinking about these things for a long time.” Brosnan spent two delightful weeks in New York City hanging out with sports journalist Dick Schaap but had almost no contact with Flood at the trial except to shake hands with him and wish him luck.

On the day of his testimony, Brosnan ate lunch with Red Smith and Jackie Robinson. Smith and Robinson had not been friends during Robinson’s playing days. Smith thought that Robinson was “fiercely racist” and “saw racism and prejudice under the bed.” Inviting Robinson to lunch showed how progressive Smith had become. Smith also was a great admirer of Brosnan’s books. The two men spent most of lunch discussing writing and art. Smith worked for the “Famous Writers School,” a group of renowned writers who critiqued the work of people who paid to send them weekly submissions. Brosnan wanted to get his daughter, an aspiring artist, into the “Famous Artists School.” Robinson, a political and social activist who knew little about writing or art, found it difficult to get a word in as Brosnan and Smith discussed their craft, and thus said almost nothing.

Brosnan was eager to testify by the time he approached the witness stand. He needed no more incentive than to see Bowie Kuhn taking notes on a yellow legal pad in the front row. At lunch, Smith informed Brosnan what Kuhn had been telling people: “What has [Brosnan] done in baseball that he can be involved in this?”

Brosnan responded with his wit. Six feet four, lanky, and wearing large black horn-rimmed glasses, he spoke with a slow midwestern accent. He enlivened every story with his writer’s eye for detail, easygoing smile, and wry sense of humor. “He is a large, amiable, four-eyed, pipe-smoking martini man out of Xavier College in Cincinnati, whose literary leanings made his employers nervous,” Red Smith wrote. Brosnan explained how he had bounced around the minor leagues and nearly quit the game after the 1953 season until the Chicago Cubs invited him to spring training. He spent half the year with the Cubs in 1954, was sent to Des Moines, and then was recalled to the Cubs a week later. The Chicago-Des Moines-Chicago moves wreaked havoc on Brosnan’s family life.

“My wife threatened to divorce me,” Brosnan testified about living in Des Moines. “She had just purchased two weeks of steaks, put them in the freezer in a house we had just rented, and she had done all this on her own because I was on a road trip to Denver. When I arrived in Denver there was a telegram saying, ‘You are recalled. Get on a plane and report to St. Louis.’ Then when I called her, she said, ‘What do I do with the steaks and the rent?’ ”

Brosnan discussed his conflicts with Reds general manager Bill DeWitt and White Sox general manager Ed Short over his writing. Brosnan recalled that after he had refused to sign a contract with the White Sox in 1964, the package containing his notice of unconditional release came with 36 cents postage due. He then explained how he had been blackballed and had taken out an ad in the Sporting News.

As the audience laughed, Hughes objected. Judge Cooper admonished Brosnan. “This is your testimony under oath and while I like a certain amount of humor and humanity in the proceedings, there must come a time when we must make real progress with regard to the substantive matters before me,” Cooper said. “So I am going to ask you to forfeit the indulgence that prompts you to add a little extra here and there.”

On the reserve clause, Brosnan mentioned three former teammates that he thought could have been starters on other major league teams. He also advocated modifications to the reserve clause. Such modifications, Brosnan said, would not result in superstars jumping from team to team. “When a ballplayer develops his talents to the point where he is recognized as an outstanding player in a particular town with a particular club, his involvement with that club and with that town is of a unique nature, that is he does not want to leave that particular town for many reasons,” Brosnan said. “In many case[s], he will have his family there, he will build a home there, he will have business contacts and businesses, probably, there. He is part of the community. His social life on and off the field, during the offseason, is bound up within the community in that particular town. For him to go to another town strictly on the basis of more money, for a star—we’re talking about stars, he is making good money in the first place—would not be a good enough reason, in my mind, to leave a club with whom he has a solid position.”