This Day in Phillies History: October 7

We here at Inside the Phillies are choosing to ignore what happened on this day in Philadelphia Phillies history in 2011 and instead focus on an event that happened 42 years prior that also involved the Phillies and St. Louis Cardinals.

So, in 1969, the Phillies conducted a trade with the Cardinals.

The Cardinals traded Curt Flood, Byron Browne, Joe Hoerner, and Tim McCarver to the Phillies in exchange for Dick Allen, Jerry Johnson, and Cookie Rojas.

But Flood refused to report to Philadelphia, as he was unwilling to leave St. Louis and was influenced by the civil rights movement. This caused St. Louis to send over Willie Montanez and a minor leaguer to complete the trade.

Flood's refusal to accept the trade ultimately led to a league-wide fight against MLB's reserve clause and seeking free agency.

The legal fight went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in Flood v. Kuhn in 1972. Although Flood lost in court, the player's union continued to push to eliminate the reserve clause, and in July 1976, the union and owners agreed to a contract that included free agency.

In 1998, the federal government passed the Curt Flood Act of 1998. However, Flood missed the Act being signed into Law, as he died the previous year in 1997 at the age of 59. You can read more about Flood and his influential legal battle that changed baseball as we know it here.

On this day in 1980, the eventual World Champion Phillies took on the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the NLCS.

Philadelphia defeated Houston 3-1, backed by a strong, seven-inning performance from their ace Steve Carlton, a Greg Luzinski homerun, and a Tug McGraw save.

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