You're listening to an I-Heart podcast.

And we return to our American stories.

Up next, an unusual story about baseball and a baseball player you likely

haven't heard of named Kurt Flood. He was a three-time All-Star back in the 70s, seven-time

Golden Glove winner, but perhaps his most important contribution to professional baseball

had to do with sports contracts, how athletes

are paid, and how major league baseball is run.

Here to tell the story is author and commentator and one of the best baseball writers of

all time, George Will, with his story.

Take it away, George. Thank you, George Will with his story. Take it away, George.

Kurt Flood was for many, many seasons, a premier outfielder. Most of the years were the St. Louis Cardinals.

He grew up in Oakland in the Bay Area, we should say, really, with Frank Robinson and Ricky

Henderson and Joe DiMaggio and all kinds of great baseball players came out of the rich baseball culture of the San Francisco,

Oakland Bay Area.

And in the 50s, he became a minor league player, largely in the South, which is where most

minor league teams were, because most major league teams were in the North.

And he experienced the segregated South.

This was the South before the public accommodation section

of the 1964 Civil Rights Act was passed.

He would travel with his teammates on the team bus.

They would go in the front door of the restaurant to get food.

He would be handed food out the back door.

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