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By Bill Behe
For the Mirror
I will always remember the first time I ever laid eyes on Willie Mays.
It was July 18, 1959, at old Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. I went slack jawed when he stood in the batting cage and launched six long taters over the 406 mark in left-center field.
Then he grabbed his Rawlings and went out and toyed with ground balls at shortstop.
In the eighth inning, he ripped into a hanging hook from Harvey Haddix and stroked another one over the 406 mark. This one counted. The Giants sunk the Pirates, 4-3.
In my humble opinion, The Say Hey Kid was the best to ever play the game. And he did it all under the stigma of being Black in the lily-white culture of Major League Baseball.
On the road, in towns like Cincinnati and St. Louis, he was shunted to separate hotels or boarding houses, never allowed to stay with his white mates at the team hotel.
Willie had style and class. His calling card was the basket catch, a skill he picked up from the Pirates' Roberto Clemente when they both played in the Puerto Rican Winter League.
I can still see Willie at old Forbes Field, looking at Felipe Alou in left field and slapping his glove off his hip to position him for the next hitter. Then he would look over at Jackie Brandt in right field and do the same thing.
If nothing else, Willam Howard Mays Jr. was an entertainer, and the diamond was his stage.
And the show was always worth the price of admission. Willie was part of the integration of Major League Baseball. His name will always be linked with Jackie Robinson, Larry Doby and Satchel Paige.
But when I think of Willie, another name pops into my brain -- Curt Flood, a Mays protege and major league provocateur.
While Willie's mission in baseball was to entertain, Flood was a crusader against Major League Baseball's reserve clause, a part of The Uniform Players Contract that back in the day, every major leaguer signed. It barred players from selling their services on the open market.
Flood considered it to be a form of slavery. When Howard Cosell chided Flood that his $90,000 salary was not exactly a slave wage, Flood shot back: "A well paid slave is nonetheless a slave."
With the reserve clause in his crosshairs, in 1971 Flood filed a lawsuit against Major League Baseball and its commissioner, Bowie Kuhn.
The case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court where it was defeated in a 5-3 decision.
Flood's campaign against baseball's reserve clause made him toxic to just about every major league owner.
But baseball legend and Senators' sympathetic manager, Ted Williams, convinced Washington Senators owner Bob Short to give Flood a contract.
Flood played 13 games for the Senators in 1971, and then he just went poof. His career was over.
During Flood's campaign to exercise the reserve clause, Willie Mays was AWOL. He never took a stand in support of his Black brother. He just kept on playing and entertaining. Some stars like Dick Allen and Sandy Koufax were solidly in Flood's corner.
For Curt Flood, a Black man taking on the white establishment of Major League Baseball, it was like trying to drain an ocean. But in 1975, an arbitration committee sided with the players.
The reserve clause was dead. Baseball free agency was born. In 1998, the federal government passed the Curt Flood Act. It revoked Major League Baseball's anti-trust status, killing the reserve clause, which is what Curt Flood had fought so hard for.
In his career, Willie Mays won two MVP (Most Valuable Player) awards. Curt Flood could never match Willie's Hall of Fame numbers.
Then again, Willie could never win a MCP award. That one goes to Curt Flood. MCP? Most Courageous Player. They are both gone now. But not without leaving, in their own way, an indelible legacy on the game they loved.
I will always love Willie Mays. But I will always love Curt Flood more. And I will miss both of them forever.
Altoona native Bill Behe resides in Florida.