Andrew James
    Staff Writer

It is a strange phenomenon when the escapist luxury of sports intersects with the American political landscape. We see it when athletes join the Black Lives Matter movement, the scads of domestic abuse cases, and the media reaction to uncovering Donald Trump hats in an athlete’s locker.

During the decade of the 1970’s, though, politics in sports culminated into a string of Supreme Court cases. As sports league’s gradually developed into some of America’s most prosperous businesses, questions began to arise about the scope of employee rights for athletes.

There are no doubts that the occupation often offers unusual circumstances—BBT and Wells Fargo have never been known to trade accountants with each other. If they did, there would surely be major lawsuits from workers who did not want to suddenly move their lives to a new city when they had already been working the same job for four years.

It started in 1970 with Oscar Robertson, the triple-double legend that analysts still often compared to LeBron James and Russell Westbrook. He filed a lawsuit that challenged the binding NBA draft contracts that kept players on the same team, and against the NBA-ABA merger.

The original decision blocked the merger, but the lawsuit was not settled until 1976, when the NBA offered free agency at the end of contracts, in exchange for the initial binding agreement of the draft contracts.

Professional basketball was also shaken up when Detroit University alum and ABA superstar Spencer Haywood was signed by the NBA’s Seattle Supersonics. At the time, there was a rule in the NBA that players had to be four years out of high school before they could play in the league.

As the NBA sought punishment for the Seattle Supersonics, Spencer Haywood filed an antitrust action against the league.

A California district court stated that Haywood’s case was legitimate—the NBA was causing potentially detrimental damage to his career by disallowing him from high-level basketball. Eventually, the case worked its way up to the Supreme Court, which ruled in Haywood’s favor 7-2.

The landmark sports court case opened the way for several college players and high school graduates to enter the league.

Just one year later, the MLB found itself involved in one of the most controversial decisions of the decade.

Three time all-star Curt Flood, a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals, had been in the league for fourteen years when he was told that he had been traded to the Philadelphia Phillies.

The Phillies were a weak baseball team and had a fan base plagued with strong racist views. Flood, an African American, did not want to play for the team. The MLB had a “reserve clause” at the time that gave a player’s rights to their team even after their contract had expired.

They could be traded, re-signed, or unconditionally released, but if they were to opt out of their contract, then that meant sitting out for a full year.

Although similar sports cases had set precedents in favor of the players, the Supreme Court made a 5-3 decision in the MLB’s favor—with one judge withholding entirely because he owned stock in Anheuser-Busch, which owned the Cardinals.

The majority opinion was written by Harry Blackmun, who began his statement by mentioning the all-time great baseball players and quoted poetry from “Casey at the Bat.”

Thurgood Marshall’s dissent pointed out that the court had chosen to exempt the MLB from anti-trust laws while the other leagues still had to follow them. The court decision has been largely criticized—it is assumed that the judges’ romantic view of the sport led to a subjective and unfair trial.

The aftermath of the case eventually led to Free Agency in the MLB, but it was too late for Curt Flood. After a year out of baseball, he came back to play for the Washington Senators, but his play was never the same.

These cases were pivotal to their sports and the professional athletes that still make millions playing them to this day. Decades of champions have passed, but every American athlete owes their gratitude to Curt Flood, Oscar Robertson, and Spencer Haywood.