Fala aê Gurizada
Marcou bem hein
uia
q coisa néh
Abs
Soccer Boy
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
The debt ceiling crisis in 3D: Deceit, Dishonesty and Dysfunction.
One of the reasons, if not the single biggest reason for the stalemate on the debt ceiling and deficit reduction is that the two forces at the center of the negotiations, Republicans and Barrack Obama, are the two most dishonest, duplicitous politically underhanded, deceitful and inept forces in the history of American politics.
The history of their dishonesty is long, well documented and there for all to see. And with the full faith and credit of the United States in the balance, it is these two thoroughly decietful and incompetent forces who are squaring off and are in the center the debt ceiling negotiations.
With Obama, he has been nothing short of a snake oil salesman his whole political life, selling empty promises he knew he'd never keep and bamboozling people into believing the water with the food coloring was good for what ailed them. Whether it was his bald faced lying to the people of Ohio on NAFTA during the primaries and then lying to the media about it for days after getting caught, ( lies the media chose to turn a blind eye to) lying to Jim Leher on PBS that he never campaigned for a public option, not to mention selling it out to health industry lobbyists behind everyone's back, or twice reneging on ending the Bush tax cuts, Obama's dishonesty and deceit as well as his lack of ability or convictions has been for him a political way of life.
The Republicans for their role, have demonstrated irrefutably for the last 20 years that they are not only unfit and unqualified to deal with any economic issues at all, they will lie, distort, even commit fraud as they did during the 2008 presidential election in New Hampshire resulting in a prison sentence for the chairman of the New Hampshire Republican committee in order to force their agenda which has consistently failed miserably every time they get the chance to implement it, down the throats of everyone else.
And their supporters in congress and the Tea Party, consisting of the biggest collection of incompetents and partisan hypocrites on both policy and politics have become the Republicans biggest obstacle while moderate Republicans look on in horror. To these Tea Baggers, the U.S. defaulting is what they want, if they dont get their way.
This is why there is a crisis on the debt ceiling, why its close to going over a cliff, why both Obama and the Republicans have already caused immesurable damage to the stability of the American economy, and why nothing has budged in weeks.
So here are some facts: Republicans quite simply are solely totally and completely responsible for the economic disaster we are now in though you'd never know it by listening to journalistic sycophants like Wolf Blitzer or Andrea Mitchell who set world records every day for using the words " both parties".Both parties are not to blame. Republicans are solely responsible for the mess. They inherited a balanced budget, they inherited a $0 deficit, they inherited a $5 1/2 trillion budget surplus and they blew it all. A Republican president and a Republican controlled congress, on their own, implementing their own policies and their own economic ideology and their own beliefs about what was good for the country, with no Democratic input, destroyed the balanced budget, destroyed the $0 deficit, sent the country back to the worst deficits in our history and in less than 3 years dissipated a $5 trillion surplus, enough money to have paid off our debt, all our bills and still have $ 1 trillion left over. And just for good measure they enacted policies that led to the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression.
The fact that Obama is so inept and spineless that he doesn't have the political backbone or wherewithal or even grasp of the issues to make that case to the country and use it to solve the crisis, instead capitulating constantly to Republicans, is another chapter in the legacy of the most unfit, dishonest, duplicitous and useless president in the history of the Democratic party.
That the Republicans with their track record of unmitigated failure and economic disaster are the ones who dont want to "give in" and are insisting its their way or default, and that Obama cant beat them back is a pathetic thing to watch.
For their part, Repulicans dont want to budge because they have seen Obama fold on every issue of contention since taking office from the public option to the Bush tax cuts and they are counting on Obama caving in again.
What is even more amusing is seeing the Tea Party, those ignorant crazies who dress up in colonial America Halloween costumes, pretend to be "patriots" and insist that the Republicans hold out and advocate default. Had these "patriots" been alive in 1776 and held the same positions and views on the things they do now George Washington would have had them all hung.
The Democrats have big problems of their own. Obama is a political narcissist who cares only about himself and his own political standing and not much else and so can never be trusted. Pelosi, the one who laughably said Obama had the judgement to be president from day one is in no position to lead having led the Democrats in the House off a cliff in the last election.
As for Republicans, like Obama, they cant be trusted either. Like Obama they are politically and intellectually dishonest and like Obama will lie about anything at any time to get whatever political advantage they can. And as far as policy results, they both have been miserable failures.
The systematic deceit of Republicans was most recently on display with John Boehner's decision to go back and revamp his deficit reduction plan, delaying the scheduled House vote because the CBO said his plan would only cut $850 billion not the $950 billion Boehner said it would.
Boehner's decision to revamp his plan based on the CBO scoring, exposed Republican deceit for what it is since during the healthcare debate, when the CBO scored the public option as something that would reduce the deficit by $160 billion, Boehner and the Republicans trashed the CBO and their scoring, calling their number bogus, denigrated the CBO in general, and denigrated their accounting methods calling it smoke and mirrors and said that it couldn't be trusted.
Now, with the debt ceiling and deficit crisis growing more acute every day, Republicans are not willing to play games with the CBO so their scoring was taken seriously but it exposed their tactics and how dishonest they are willing to get.
It's important to bring this up because the only way out of this mess and to know where to go is to know how we got here. And it was through incompetence, dishonesty, deceit, and political and policy ineptitude by Obama and Republicans and their supporters that got us here. With a competent president, and Democratic leadership these issues would have been taken care of a year ago when Democrats had large majorities in congress. Instead Obama folded. And in knowing how we got here and what to do about it, its simply a matter of physics. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. A Republican congress and a Republican president took the country to war and cut taxes at the same time for the first time in American history. The result was that the $ 1 trillion the Iraq war cost the U.S. treasury was not paid for because the Republicans reduced the revenue the government brought in with their tax cuts. The $1 trillion for the Iraq war is $1 trillion of the $1.7 trillion deficit. All you do is end Bush's war AND Bush;s tax cuts and the American economy starts to make its way back to where it was before the war and before the Bush tax cuts. Obama is incapable of making that case. He doesnt have what it takes.
So now its time for the grown ups, if there are any, to take over. Obama has already given away the store on cuts and the Republicans are holding up the deal over their indefensible tax cuts for upper income earners and corporations that caused much of the problem in the first place.
Since Obama cant make a case for anything, he either has to do what Bill Clinton said he'd do, which is invoke the 14th amendment and by executive order raise the debt ceiling without congress, ( something Obama has been too spineless to do and could have done months ago), or Republicans are going to have to fumigate the room of the Tea Party and agree to the tax increases which by the way, is what Bill Clinton used to bring the deficit down to $0.
Either that or pass the Reid McConnell compromise which at least takes the issue out of the hands of Obama and Boehner and settles the issue through 2013. Then each caucus can deal with their own problems, the Republicans the intransigent Tea Party who border on treason, and Democrats having to take the agenda out of Obama's hands and then find a credible Democratic challenger to Obama in the 2012 primaries since he has no hope ( justifiably) of getting re-elected.
Either way, this should be a teachable moment, a time when both sides realize its long past time to cut the crap and balance, and agree that from now on, dishonesty and partisan politics will be taken out of the process especially when a crisis faces the country and that the only thing that will matter is what is best for United States and the majority of its people.
Marc Rubin
Copyright Marc Rubin 2008
Copyright Marc Rubin 2008
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Men Behaving Bradley?
A Quick Look at the Issues Raised by the Lawsuit Filed Against Junior Welterweight Champion Timothy Bradley
Earlier this year, it appeared as if a “Desert Storm” was going to wreak havoc on the junior welterweight division, as WBO/WBC Junior Welterweight Champion Timothy (Desert Storm) Bradley, 27-0 (11 KOs), began to impose his will on his division’s fellow titleholders, starting with his January 29, 2011 technical decision win over then-WBC champion Devon (The Great) Alexander. While not a scintillating performance, Bradley’s domination of Alexander was expected to lead to a more compelling unification bout with former 2004 British Olympic silver medalist and current WBA Junior Welterweight Champion Amir Khan. Khan, fresh off of his tremendous war with Marcos (El Chino) Maidana and the methodical breakdown of Paul McCloskey, was expected to give Bradley the sternest test of his professional career in a battle for three of the four major junior welterweight crowns. Another battle, however, was reportedly beginning to brew behind the scenes which pitted Bradley and his manager, Cameron Dunkin, against his soon-to-be former promoters Gary Shaw and Ken Thompson, with whom Bradley’s promotional agreement was expiring. Thus, as the negotiations for a Bradley-Khan fight languished on despite some exceptional concessions from the Khan camp, including an even split of the television money generated in Khan’s fan bases, it was widely whispered that Bradley may be looking to simply spike the ball and sit out the rest of his contract with Shaw and Thompson so that he can sign with Top Rank or another major promoter. What began was rampant speculation and rumor boiled over earlier this month into a Florida-venued lawsuit against Bradley and Dunkin in which Shaw and Thompson allege, among other claims, breach of contract and tortious interference in contractual relations in connection with their respective actions during the Khan negotiation. The inference that the lawsuit makes is that it was nothing more than bad faith and looking past their expiring promotional agreement with Shaw and Thompson that led Bradley and Dunkin to opt out of the Khan fight. But was this just a matter of Bradley behaving badly, or something less sinister? A quick look at the potential issues raised by Shaw and Thompson’s lawsuit follows...
Monday, July 25, 2011
Pena que o vídeo não tah mais na net...
se alguém tiver baixado me envie ok? aí posto para vcs
Cáceres... pelo menos o corpo é GDE néh hehehehehehehehehe
A Sunguinha do Loco Abreu é show e é Nike.
vms alongar?
bom demais hein
Vai vendo
hehehe vai confiando em amigo hahaha
Até mais
Mulekada vlw pelos emails
Abração
Soccer Boy
NFL Lockout is (essentially) over: New Sports Illustrated column on what's next
Here's my Q/A for SI on the end of the lockout and what is now likely to happen. Speaking of SI, congrats to Gabe Feldman on being named by SI as the 100 top twitter users.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Pine Tar: Of baseball and law
Today marks the 28th anniversary of the "Pine Tar Game." In 1983, the Royals were playing the Yankees at Yankee Stadium on a Sunday afternoon. With two out in the top of ninth and the Yankees up 4-3, George Brett hit a two-run homer. But Yankee manager Billy Martin protested, saying that Brett had used an illegal bat containing pine tar more than 18 inches up the bat handle;R. 1.10(c) prohibited pine tar or any other grip-improving substance on the hitting area of the bat. The umps measured the amount of pine tar, found it higher than 18 inches, and called Brett out, giving the Yankees the win. In one of the iconic video images in baseball history, Brett came charging out of the dugout and tried to attack the umpire and had to be restrained by teammates, coaches, and other umpires. The Royals protested and the protest was upheld by AL President Lee MacPhail, who reinstated the homer and ordered the game resumed from that point.
Long before John Roberts went before the Senate Judiciary Committee, this game had people talking about baseball and the law, even prompting some legal scholarship on the case as demonstrating statutory interpretation, judicial decisionmaking, and legal processes.
R. 1.10(c) called for the removal of the tainted bat from the game, but did not specify what should happen to a player who used such a bat or to a play in which such a bat was used. The home-plate umpire invoked his gap-filling power under R. 9.01(c) to "rule on any point not specifically covered in these rules" and decided that a player should be called out for using an illegal bat on a play.
In reversing that decision, McPhail made an intentionalist "spirit v. letter of the rule" decision. R. 1.10(c) was not about regulating performance, it was about economics. MLB wanted players to keep pine tar off the hitting area of the bat because if pine tar got on the ball, the ball would have to be thrown out, requiring teams to provide more balls each game. But pine tar did not affect the "performance" of the bat, in the sense of how far or hard or well the ball would travel off the bat (compared with, for example, doing something to make the bat lighter). Thus, the only appropriate sanction was removing the bat from the game, as provided in R. 1.10(c). Calling a player out was an unnecssary additional sanction, because Brett's violation of the rule did not give him an unfair competitive advantage. The umps, if you will, abused their discretion in turning to 9.01(c) for that additional sanction.
This also shows that the posture of an issue on appeal and the administrability of any ruling affects its resolution. This was one of the rare cases that a league upheld an appeal of an umpire's ruling--in fact, it was the only time in MacPhail's ten-year term as AL President that he overruled the umpires. He was able to do so, in part, given the timing of the play at issue--it was the final play of the game. This meant there were only two possiblities: game over if MacPahil affirmed or pick the game up from a known point immediately after the challenged play if he reversed. But imagine the administraive difficulties if the challenged play had come in the fifth inning. The game would have been played to a conclusion "under protest," then the challenge would have gone to the league (in essence, a Final Judgment Rule). If MacPhail makes the same ruling, what happens? Does the game resume from after the challenged play and everything that actually happened is erased from the record books? Does it depend on whether those two runs would have made a difference in the game, in essence, a harmless error analysis? Should the game resume only if it would affect the pennant races (both teams were in contention, although neither won its division), in essence a mootness analysis?
MacPhail ordered the game replayed from the point of the call--two outs in the top of ninth, Royals up 5-4. There was more conflict over when the game would be played or if it should be played. The Yankees wanted to wait until the end of the season and resume it only if it affected the penant race. The AL ordered the game to be picked up on Thursday afternoon, August 18.
Then there was some real legal wrangling. The Yankees sued to stop the resumed game, citing security and administrative burdens; a state trial court issued a preliminary injunction, which was quickly overturned on appeal. So the game resumed, with about 1200 fans in the stands. The first move by manager Billy Martin was to appeal to every base, arguing that Brett and the runner ahead of him had not touched the bases on the home run. The four umpires working the resumed game were not the same umpires who had worked the original game, but each signalled safe. They then produced an affidavit from the four original umpires swearing that both players had touched all the bases on the home run.
Finally, to see separation of powers at work: MLB amended the rules to handle the situation in the future, adding a Note to R. 1.10(c) stating that the use of a bat with too much pine tar would not be the basis for calling a player out or ejecting him from the game and a Comment that if excessive pine tar is not objected to prior to a play, it cannot be a basis for nullifying a play or protesting the game.
Umpiring--it's a lot more than calling balls and strikes.
Long before John Roberts went before the Senate Judiciary Committee, this game had people talking about baseball and the law, even prompting some legal scholarship on the case as demonstrating statutory interpretation, judicial decisionmaking, and legal processes.
R. 1.10(c) called for the removal of the tainted bat from the game, but did not specify what should happen to a player who used such a bat or to a play in which such a bat was used. The home-plate umpire invoked his gap-filling power under R. 9.01(c) to "rule on any point not specifically covered in these rules" and decided that a player should be called out for using an illegal bat on a play.
In reversing that decision, McPhail made an intentionalist "spirit v. letter of the rule" decision. R. 1.10(c) was not about regulating performance, it was about economics. MLB wanted players to keep pine tar off the hitting area of the bat because if pine tar got on the ball, the ball would have to be thrown out, requiring teams to provide more balls each game. But pine tar did not affect the "performance" of the bat, in the sense of how far or hard or well the ball would travel off the bat (compared with, for example, doing something to make the bat lighter). Thus, the only appropriate sanction was removing the bat from the game, as provided in R. 1.10(c). Calling a player out was an unnecssary additional sanction, because Brett's violation of the rule did not give him an unfair competitive advantage. The umps, if you will, abused their discretion in turning to 9.01(c) for that additional sanction.
This also shows that the posture of an issue on appeal and the administrability of any ruling affects its resolution. This was one of the rare cases that a league upheld an appeal of an umpire's ruling--in fact, it was the only time in MacPhail's ten-year term as AL President that he overruled the umpires. He was able to do so, in part, given the timing of the play at issue--it was the final play of the game. This meant there were only two possiblities: game over if MacPahil affirmed or pick the game up from a known point immediately after the challenged play if he reversed. But imagine the administraive difficulties if the challenged play had come in the fifth inning. The game would have been played to a conclusion "under protest," then the challenge would have gone to the league (in essence, a Final Judgment Rule). If MacPhail makes the same ruling, what happens? Does the game resume from after the challenged play and everything that actually happened is erased from the record books? Does it depend on whether those two runs would have made a difference in the game, in essence, a harmless error analysis? Should the game resume only if it would affect the pennant races (both teams were in contention, although neither won its division), in essence a mootness analysis?
MacPhail ordered the game replayed from the point of the call--two outs in the top of ninth, Royals up 5-4. There was more conflict over when the game would be played or if it should be played. The Yankees wanted to wait until the end of the season and resume it only if it affected the penant race. The AL ordered the game to be picked up on Thursday afternoon, August 18.
Then there was some real legal wrangling. The Yankees sued to stop the resumed game, citing security and administrative burdens; a state trial court issued a preliminary injunction, which was quickly overturned on appeal. So the game resumed, with about 1200 fans in the stands. The first move by manager Billy Martin was to appeal to every base, arguing that Brett and the runner ahead of him had not touched the bases on the home run. The four umpires working the resumed game were not the same umpires who had worked the original game, but each signalled safe. They then produced an affidavit from the four original umpires swearing that both players had touched all the bases on the home run.
Finally, to see separation of powers at work: MLB amended the rules to handle the situation in the future, adding a Note to R. 1.10(c) stating that the use of a bat with too much pine tar would not be the basis for calling a player out or ejecting him from the game and a Comment that if excessive pine tar is not objected to prior to a play, it cannot be a basis for nullifying a play or protesting the game.
Umpiring--it's a lot more than calling balls and strikes.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Winning and losing legal battles and the legacy of Curt Flood
As Nathan noted last week, HBO Sports has produced an excellent documentary (narrated, of course, by Liev Schreiber), The Curious Case of Curt Flood, examining Flood's career, unsuccessful federal-court fight to establish free agency, and life after baseball. Among the commentators is Wisconsin Prawf Brad Snyder, who wrote a fantastic book on Flood's case, A Well-Paid Slave: Curt Flood's Fight for Free Agency in Professional Sports.
One of the subjects the movie tackles is Flood's precise legacy. The popular myth (and I use myth in both its meanings) is that Flood successfully challenged baseball's reserve system (which essentially allowed MLB Clubs to continually renew a player's one-year contract) and created free agency. But Flood did not win, losing in a 1972 decision that has become infamous for two things: 1) Justice Blackmun's otherise-pointless paen to the glory and history of baseball (which Chief Justice Burger and Justice White refused to join and which excluded Joe DiMaggio from the list of greatest players) and 2) a logical progression of, essentially, "We were wrong in our two prior precedents holding that MLB is not engaged in interstate commerce and thus not subject to the Sherman Act, but at this point it is for Congress, not us, to change it." Free agency came about three years after Flood, as a result of a labor arbitrator's decision (that may well have been legally incorrect, according to some) in a griveance filed by two other players, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally.
So why is Flood widely spoken of, especially by the media and other professional athletes, as the person who made free agency possible? And what does that tell us about what it means to win and lose legal-reform battles?
1) Several commentators in the film argued that Flood put free agency in moral terms, something Messersmith and McNally did not and could not do. Rhetorically this is true. Flood, who had been active in the Civil Rights Movement, spoke of the reserve system as slavery and argued that "a well-paid slave is still a slave" (the quotation which gave Snyder his book title). Whether Flood was right to speak in terms of slavery, no white player could have done the same. In any event, the point was that the existing system was morally wrong and had to change.
But putting his own lawsuit in moral terms did not help Flood himself, who aroused the ire and opposition of the old guard of very conservative, largely white sports writers who were closely tied to teams and owners and were shockingly (compared with today) hostile to players who stepped out of line. And it did not help him in his lawsuit. But did the moral rhetoric ultimately affect the outcome of the legal battle? Did it influence the later resolutions in arbitration?
2) Snyder argues that Flood's case, even if ultimately unsuccessful, swung public opinion in the players' favor. Perhaps that gave the players greater leverage in labor negotiations or even influence the subsequent arbitration decisions. This becomes another instance of public opinion affecting legal decisionmaking. Of course, the change in public opinion still ahd to overcome the hostility of most sports writers, particularly columnists.
3) Snyder argues that the real effect of Flood's lawsuit was to accelerate free agency by accelerating the collective bargaining process between MLB and the Players' Association. MLB's argument during the Flood trial was that this was not an antitrust matter, but a matter for collective bargaining. The players and owners were negotiating what became the 1970 Basic Agreement during the trial in 1979; that agreement ultimately included a 10-and-5 rule (a player with ten years MLB experience and five with the same club could veto any trade--this would have allowed Flood to veto his trade from the Cardinals to the Phillies) and independent grievance arbitration, which ultimately produced decisions rejecting the reserve system. Snyder argues it was not a coincidence that MLB gave the players through collective bargaining the things that it insisted warranted rejecting Flood's antitrust argument. He quotes then Union head Marvin Miller as saying that the owners rejected an independent grievance process in December 1969, prior to Flood filing suit, then agreed to it six months later.
If Snyder is right, it tells us something about the need for legal movements to proceed on multiple fronts. Just as the civil rights agenda had to be pursued through both the courts and Congress, the players had to pursue free agency and higher salaries in the courts, at the collective-bargaining table, and even in Congress (where the threat of removing MLB's antitrust exemption lurked for years). Ultimately, the movement may achieve some success in each arena. Or at least the arguments made in one forum necessary influence conduct and results in another.
4) The fourth possibility is that Flood was a martyr to the cause. And successful social movements arguably always need martyrs, those people who sacrificed something but failed in their efforts to establish some change and never enjoyed the benefits or fruits of that sacrifice. Flood is like, say, John Brown or Harvey Milk. The players who successfully challenged the reserve system in arbitration got their pay days (or in McNally's case, retired following the arbitrator's decision). Flood attempted to come back in 1971, but retired after just 13 games, his skills having eroded from his year off; so, in effect, he sacrificed his career to change the system. The next two decades of his life, the movie shows, were spent in a spiral of business, financial, legal, and alcohol problems, as well as a failed stint as an announcer. He never got his payday. Morover, he was something of a late-discovered martyr. His sacrifice was not widely acknowledged until the 1994 players' strike. At that point he became the public face of challenges to MLB's power, only to contract cancer and die at age 59 in 1997. Legislation to eliminate baseball's antitrust exemption was introduced shortly after his death and named in his memory.
One of the subjects the movie tackles is Flood's precise legacy. The popular myth (and I use myth in both its meanings) is that Flood successfully challenged baseball's reserve system (which essentially allowed MLB Clubs to continually renew a player's one-year contract) and created free agency. But Flood did not win, losing in a 1972 decision that has become infamous for two things: 1) Justice Blackmun's otherise-pointless paen to the glory and history of baseball (which Chief Justice Burger and Justice White refused to join and which excluded Joe DiMaggio from the list of greatest players) and 2) a logical progression of, essentially, "We were wrong in our two prior precedents holding that MLB is not engaged in interstate commerce and thus not subject to the Sherman Act, but at this point it is for Congress, not us, to change it." Free agency came about three years after Flood, as a result of a labor arbitrator's decision (that may well have been legally incorrect, according to some) in a griveance filed by two other players, Andy Messersmith and Dave McNally.
So why is Flood widely spoken of, especially by the media and other professional athletes, as the person who made free agency possible? And what does that tell us about what it means to win and lose legal-reform battles?
1) Several commentators in the film argued that Flood put free agency in moral terms, something Messersmith and McNally did not and could not do. Rhetorically this is true. Flood, who had been active in the Civil Rights Movement, spoke of the reserve system as slavery and argued that "a well-paid slave is still a slave" (the quotation which gave Snyder his book title). Whether Flood was right to speak in terms of slavery, no white player could have done the same. In any event, the point was that the existing system was morally wrong and had to change.
But putting his own lawsuit in moral terms did not help Flood himself, who aroused the ire and opposition of the old guard of very conservative, largely white sports writers who were closely tied to teams and owners and were shockingly (compared with today) hostile to players who stepped out of line. And it did not help him in his lawsuit. But did the moral rhetoric ultimately affect the outcome of the legal battle? Did it influence the later resolutions in arbitration?
2) Snyder argues that Flood's case, even if ultimately unsuccessful, swung public opinion in the players' favor. Perhaps that gave the players greater leverage in labor negotiations or even influence the subsequent arbitration decisions. This becomes another instance of public opinion affecting legal decisionmaking. Of course, the change in public opinion still ahd to overcome the hostility of most sports writers, particularly columnists.
3) Snyder argues that the real effect of Flood's lawsuit was to accelerate free agency by accelerating the collective bargaining process between MLB and the Players' Association. MLB's argument during the Flood trial was that this was not an antitrust matter, but a matter for collective bargaining. The players and owners were negotiating what became the 1970 Basic Agreement during the trial in 1979; that agreement ultimately included a 10-and-5 rule (a player with ten years MLB experience and five with the same club could veto any trade--this would have allowed Flood to veto his trade from the Cardinals to the Phillies) and independent grievance arbitration, which ultimately produced decisions rejecting the reserve system. Snyder argues it was not a coincidence that MLB gave the players through collective bargaining the things that it insisted warranted rejecting Flood's antitrust argument. He quotes then Union head Marvin Miller as saying that the owners rejected an independent grievance process in December 1969, prior to Flood filing suit, then agreed to it six months later.
If Snyder is right, it tells us something about the need for legal movements to proceed on multiple fronts. Just as the civil rights agenda had to be pursued through both the courts and Congress, the players had to pursue free agency and higher salaries in the courts, at the collective-bargaining table, and even in Congress (where the threat of removing MLB's antitrust exemption lurked for years). Ultimately, the movement may achieve some success in each arena. Or at least the arguments made in one forum necessary influence conduct and results in another.
4) The fourth possibility is that Flood was a martyr to the cause. And successful social movements arguably always need martyrs, those people who sacrificed something but failed in their efforts to establish some change and never enjoyed the benefits or fruits of that sacrifice. Flood is like, say, John Brown or Harvey Milk. The players who successfully challenged the reserve system in arbitration got their pay days (or in McNally's case, retired following the arbitrator's decision). Flood attempted to come back in 1971, but retired after just 13 games, his skills having eroded from his year off; so, in effect, he sacrificed his career to change the system. The next two decades of his life, the movie shows, were spent in a spiral of business, financial, legal, and alcohol problems, as well as a failed stint as an announcer. He never got his payday. Morover, he was something of a late-discovered martyr. His sacrifice was not widely acknowledged until the 1994 players' strike. At that point he became the public face of challenges to MLB's power, only to contract cancer and die at age 59 in 1997. Legislation to eliminate baseball's antitrust exemption was introduced shortly after his death and named in his memory.
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