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Stepping Up: The Story of Curt Flood

By Dr. John D. Eigenauer
May 19, 2006

Baseball fans who grew up with free agency may not remember the impact of Curt Flood's efforts in challenging baseball's reserve clause. And those unfamiliar with Flood's life have never had an adequate biography of him. Alex Belth's Stepping Up: The Story of Curt Flood and His Fight for Baseball Players' Rights provides fans with both a biography and a description of Flood's important court case. However, depending upon your familiarity with Flood's career and legal battles, the book may impress you as a fine introduction or as incomplete history.

Flood Topps printed a card featuring of the seven time Gold Glove winner with the Phillies in its 1970 set, but he never reported to them and instead was shipped off to the Senators, where he finished his career in 1971.

For someone unfamiliar with Flood's life and legal case in which he sought free agency, the book provides an adequate introduction. It follows Flood's career from his youth, highlighting his major accomplishments and struggles. The stories are easy to follow, and one comes away from the book better informed about the importance of Flood's case, the social difficulties he confronted, and the state of baseball labor issues when Flood sued baseball. For those looking for a quick introduction to Flood's case, which made it all the way to the Supreme Court, the book encapsulates his legal struggles in one succinct chapter.

However, for those who know Flood's story, the book will be less gratifying. In a word, it is superficial. Belth, who admits to having first heard of Flood's case in 1994, wrote the book because someone asked him to "write a book about an athlete". Evidently, that did not provide sufficient incentive to do adequate research because the book misses many opportunities to explore topics deeply. It is full of statements such as, "It's unclear whether [Solly] Hemus [Flood's manager] had anything personal against Flood…" Since Hemus is still alive, that would have been an interview worth pursuing.

Remarkably, the book is relatively free of interview material that would have invigorated it. While Belth uses some material from Commissioner Bowie Kuhn's book, Hardball: The Education of a Baseball Commissioner, Kuhn is alive and probably could have provided additional insight about Flood's case, and perhaps added new perspective. Even using the interview published by The Business of Baseball would have been helpful. Gibson, McCarver, and a few others provide some material, but not nearly as much as could have been used.

In Belth's defense, the book probably was not intended as fresh scholarship. It lacks footnotes, its bibliography is minimal, and the author makes few references to contemporary newspaper accounts. The book reads like an introductory narrative, which is what it is. With that in mind, readers seeking a short, introductory biography of Flood may well enjoy it; more demanding baseball readers may find it lacking in substance.

John Eigenauer can be contacted at jeigenauer@yahoo.com. A complete list of his reviews and more about him can be found here.