When I was ten years old, our dad accepted a position as a traveling salesman in the sporting goods business, covering a large territory. His father-in-law, our mother’s dad, had been doing so since the mid-1920s, and our father made a great career out of it with his agency, Jack Waddell & Sons.
The organization carried various lines, from athletic uniforms to ballcaps to socks and playground equipment. Their sales cases carried as many catalogs as would rival the one Sears published.
In 1966, as a 15-year-old, I joined a team in Nashville’s Babe Ruth League, Knight’s Drugs. I always enjoyed playing first base and had a Macgregor mitt picked up from Dad’s brother’s business, Walter Nipper’s Nashville Sporting Goods. The problem with playing for this new team was that they had a first baseman.
Fortunately, one of the lines Dad sold was a new company formed when a future Hall of Fame pro retired. For many years Stan Musial endorsed Rawling products but took on a new endorsement with his name on it: Stan-the-Man, Inc.
I was thrilled when Dad came home and tossed me a fielder’s glove, one for a lefty. As I looked over it, he explained how it was patterned for one of Rawlings’ models, and he just happened to have it in his sample bag.
The strap had a red and white patch with a sewn outline of Musial in his batting stance and “STAN-the-MAN inc” across it. That was great, but there was added excitement.
It had Curt Flood’s autograph stamped on the fifth finger.
My Stan-the-Man Curt Flood-endorsed glove was very good to me. I still have it, and it is in as good shape as it ever was.
Two seasons before my Babe Ruth League playing days was the first time I was enthralled with the World Series between the New York Yankees and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Cardinals won the 1964 classic. Though a Yankees fan, St. Louis became my National League team as the seven games were all memorable ones, and I knew the lineup as well as I knew the Yankees roster.
Flood held down centerfield and earned his first All-Star game, which he would repeat twice. Flood was a three-time All-Star, and with three Gold Glove awards already and four more in his future, he was also a consistent .300 hitter.
He would become a key figure in the sport’s labor history by declining to accept a trade to the Philadelphia Phillies after the 1969 season. After failing to gain free agency, he met with the players’ union head, Marvin Miller, and appealed his case to the U.S. Supreme Court.
His challenge was unsuccessful, but it united players as they fought against baseball’s reserve clause and sought free agency, which ultimately became the norm.
Shifting gears a bit, there is a connection to Flood and Nashville baseball. Once again, bear with me.
Several times a year, I have the opportunity to speak with someone I admire. His name is Drew Edward Gilbert. Better known as “Buddy,” he was a Nashville Vols outfielder during three seasons: 1958, 1959, and 1961, 89 years young and still living in Knoxville. He is about the most pleasant ball player I have had the pleasure of knowing and speaking with.
Before joining the Vols, he spent two seasons in 1956 and 1957 with Savannah, a Cincinnati Reds farm club just like Nashville. One of his teammates in 1957 was Curt Flood, a 19-year-old prospect who played third base for the ball club.
Author Stuart L. Weiss writes in his book The Curt Flood Story (2007, University of Missouri Press) that “Drew ‘Buddy’ Gilbert, also a Savannah Red player and acknowledged white friend from Knoxville who often brought Flood food when the bus stopped, recalls that though they sometimes joked a bit. Gilbert noted that Flood ‘wasn’t outgoing.” Indeed, Flood was so closed up that he did not tell Gilbert where he lived.”
Undoubtedly, Gilbert affected Flood, as because Flood was Black, he was legally prohibited from eating in white-only, segregated restaurants.
In 2008, Gilbert told Knoxville News-Sentinel reporter Mark Burgess that Flood had mentioned him in a book.
“Curt Flood mentioned in his autobiography that in all the years he played baseball there was one white boy from Knoxville, Tennessee that always treated him like a man – Buddy Gilbert,” he said. “That broke my heart. That’s the nicest compliment I think I have ever had in my lifetime.”
That is not the end of the story. Buddy, the son of an alcoholic father who used profanity but was raised as a Christian by a loving mother, never uses off-color words in his description of his playing career or anything else, for that matter. His vibrant laugh, which comes with his often-corny jokes, is part of his personality and is contagious, as is his love for his neighbors and fellow man.
It is important to know that Buddy would take Flood’s meal to him when he could not eat in the same restaurant as white players, and Buddy would sit outside or on the team bus with his teammate.
Curt Flood stands out as one treated unfairly, while Buddy Gilbert demonstrated exceptional kindness and support towards him. It reflects who Buddy is and always has been.
© 2025 by Skip Nipper. All Rights Reserved.
