Introducing Business History: The Man Who Sued Major League Baseball

Against the Rules: The Big Short Companion

Pushkin Industries

Business, Society & Culture, Sports

4.6 • 9.8K Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2025

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Today, we're sharing a new podcast from Pushkin Industries we think you'll enjoy, Business History. Former Planet Money hosts Jacob Goldstein and Robert Smith examine the surprising stories of businesses big and small, bringing to life the greatest innovations, the boldest entrepreneurs and the craziest mavericks in the archives of commerce and finance.

In this episode: Curt Flood vs. Major League Baseball.

Curt Flood was the best center fielder in baseball and one of the game's highest payed players. He helped the St. Louis Cardinals reach the 1968 World Series... but then got traded. The rules said had no say in the decision. He either could go to Philly, or quit the sport. So Curt decided to sue.

Curt argued that Major League Baseball should act like any other business and let workers sell their labor to whichever team they liked. But for decades, courts had ruled in favor of the team owners. Curt's fight would destroy his career; anger many parts of American society; and change the sport forever.

(00:04) Listen to Business History, on Apple Podcasts & Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	This is an IHeart podcast.
0:02.6	Guaranteed Human.
0:04.1	Do you ever wish your office felt better?
0:06.9	BuzzySpace designs furniture and acoustic solutions that make work spaces more comfortable,
0:11.8	more creative, and more fun.
0:13.7	If you need a quiet corner to focus or a collaborative space to brainstorm,
0:17.9	BuzzySpace has you covered.
0:19.5	Head to Buzzy.Space to check out their innovative solutions and make your office a place
0:24.4	people actually love coming to.
0:26.4	That's B-U-Z-Z-I-D-Space.
0:36.2	Pushkin.
0:38.9	I'm Jacob Goldstein.
0:40.5	And I'm Robert Smith, and we are the hosts of business history, a show.
0:44.3	How would you describe it?
0:45.2	It's about the history of business.
0:46.5	That's what it does.
0:47.2	Robert, we have been making shows together elsewhere for more than a decade.
0:51.6	We used to us Planet Money together.
0:53.7	And we both love a business story.
0:56.4	We both love a history story. And we were delighted to be making this show. We have, no joke,
1:02.1	360 ideas for episodes, everything from Babylon and Debt and the Romans to the Mongols,
1:08.8	to the story of Blackberry and Southwest Airlines and Blockbuster.
	...

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