A Well-Paid Slave by Brad Snyder Page B

kindnesses only accentuated the cruelty of prejudice,” Flood said. Flood seethed as he waited for his food on the bus. “He took a lot,” Gilbert recalled. “How he ever held it in was beyond my comprehension. There were times it really bothered him, more than the other guys. He would just get really quiet.”
    Playing third base made Flood an easy target for abuse. He committed 41 errors that season, and each error was an excuse for the fans, either home or away, to call him another name. In August, he injured the inside of his right arm sliding into the canvas bag at second base. An ugly mass of flesh formed on the joint and made throwing extremely painful. He played on, though he shifted to right field for the last two weeks of the season. For Flood, it was all about surviving physically and mentally and advancing to the major leagues. He could not do that on the bench.
    Flood’s Sally League season was solid but not spectacular. His .299 average was the fourth highest in the league. He finished among the Sally League leaders in most offensive categories. He made two Sally League all-star teams at third base despite his 41 errors.
    The Reds thought enough of Flood’s Sally League campaign to call him up again at the end of the season. His first major league hit was a home run, a two-run shot down the left-field line off Chicago Cubs pitcher Moe Drabowsky. The home run was a happy ending to two brutal seasons in the southern minor leagues. The name-calling, segregated facilities, and second-class citizenship had transformed Flood from an extroverted kid who charmed adults into a quiet, introverted man who had survived two trying years in the South because of his tremendous pride and inner competitive fire.
    Flood discovered the effects of the reserve clause that winter in Venezuela. He was sent there to learn to play second base because of the outstanding 1957 season of Reds third baseman Don Hoak. Then came the first trade. In exchange for Flood and outfielder Joe Taylor, the Reds acquired three Cardinals pitchers whom sportswriter Jim Murray later described as “a flock of nobodies even the slot man on the Sporting News had to look up.”
    The Reds traded Flood to the Cardinals for the same reason they had tried to turn him into an infielder—Cincinnati was not ready for an all-black outfield. The Reds already had 1956 Rookie of the Year Frank Robinson in left field and preferred another West Oakland player, Vada Pinson, in center. Pinson was not the defensive outfielder that Flood was, but Pinson was bigger, stronger, and faster. After tearing up Class C Visalia in 1957, Pinson played so spectacularly in spring training in 1958 that he started in right field for the Reds on Opening Day before a slump sent him back to the minor leagues. The following year, Pinson emerged as the Reds’ star center fielder.
    Bobby Mattick, the scout who had signed all three players, rejected the all-black-outfield theory as the reason behind the Flood trade. Mattick pointed out that another of his black Bay Area signees, Tommy Harper, started in the Reds outfield with Robinson and Pinson from 1963 to 1965. But that was years later. Mattick attributed the trade to Reds manager Birdie Tebbetts, who had told Mattick that Flood was too small. Tebbetts denied that race had anything to do with it, saying he had traded Flood because of a hitch in his swing. Flood did have a hitch (that he later corrected), but so did many other great players, including Frank Robinson.
    An equally plausible explanation for Flood’s trade to the Cardinals was the unspoken quota system employed by most major league teams of the late 1950s and early 1960s. “There was a quota on a lot of ball clubs,” Frank Robinson said. “If you saw a few [blacks] at spring training at a major league camp and there was more than four, you said, ‘Uh-uh, someone’s got to go.’ ” The Reds opened the 1958