The name ‘Curt Flood,’ conjures up a world of baseball players fighting to be free. The brave, hard-hitting outfielder sacrificed his career by battling the team owners’ lifetime “ownership” of players in a 1972 Supreme Court suit. In losing, Flood paved the way for pitcher Andy Messersmith’s 1975 arbitration victory, and that changed the financial terrain of baseball forever.

But the story behind the story often gets lost — in this case, that the Baseball Players’ Association and its longtime leader Marvin Miller provided Flood with crucial financing, support and legal advice.

On May 21, New York University celebrated the opening of the Marvin Miller Collection at the Wagner Labor Archives/Tamiment Institute with an all-star lineup to set the record straight on collective bargaining in baseball. The papers of the famed Mr. Miller, the man responsible for bringing trade unionism to the backward industry of baseball, will provide the basis for scholarship on the subject of sports and collective bargaining.

Yankee pitcher Jim Bouton recounted the early days of the Players Association and a lesson he learned from Mr. Miller: “We’re not just the workers. We’re the product.” Some players said, “That’s communist thinking. And that’s how I got my nickname — The Communist.”

This was back in the summer of 1966, when the owners still considered the players their property. “For what they were trying to do with the Players Association, Marvin Miller was reviled in many circles,” said Donald Fehr, who succeeded him as executive director. “He was referred to as “an ideologue bent on destroying the game, a dangerous demagogue,” said Mr. Fehr. But patiently, over time, he taught the players “that they were not just out there having fun, but that they were workers, very skilled workers. They learned that workers have rights. And that they were not being treated fairly.”

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Players’ agent Dick Moss, who served as general counsel to the Players Association, recalled that, “In 1966, a substantial proportion of the players felt that organizing was not appropriate. Mr. Miller taught the players how to build an organization. That it is the players — the members — who matter.”

For more on this story, you can check out Miller’s book, “A Whole Different Ball Game: The Sport and Business of Baseball.”

— Jane LaTour