Locker-room liberty: athletes who helped shape our times and the economic freedom that enabled them

This system came under sustained attack from the players of all three sports in the mid-1960s, coinciding almost perfectly with their newfound willingness to speak and act out. By 1976, after long and bloody fights, athletes had finally won the right to become free agents, able to sign new contracts with any team after their current deals expired. Combined with the explosion of live satellite television and the short-lived presence of competing professional leagues in basketball and football, the fight for free agency jacked up salaries more than tenfold and put more swagger in the players' steps.

The direct link between economic freedom and unfettered self-expression is the unarticulated subtext of the many biographies of stars from this era. Mark Kriegel's widely praised Namath and William Kashatus' September Swoon: Richie Allen, the '64 Phillies and Racial Integration dig up example after example of contractual bargaining power enabling truly free speech, which in turn thrilled, challenged, and outraged the public and the press. This theme is even more explicit when the athletes tell their own tales, as in basketball Hall of Famer Oscar Robertson's The Big O.

Without his record-breaking $400,000 contract--made possible only by the brief, competitive presence of the American Football League--Joe Namath might never have bent genders, hosted his own weirdo talk show (in which a typical episode included Truman Capote and boxer Rocky Graziano talking with sportswriter Dick Schaap about the Vietnam War while swilling booze in coffee cups), or eloquently defended his God-given right to get wasted whenever the hell he pleased. Without hard-fought financial security, Phillies slugger Dick Allen probably wouldn't have had the confidence to bark back against the foul racism and violent hostility he faced in Little Rock and then Philadelphia. (And without that notorious Philly experience, black St. Louis Cardinals outfielder Curt Flood might have accepted his 1969 trade for Allen, rather than challenge the reserve clause all the way up to the Supreme Court, indirectly ushering in the era of free agency.)

On the field, the newly confident self-expression manifested itself not just in the decade's extravagant facial hair and afros, but also in the style and quality of play. In the NBA, the heavily coached, collegiate tactics of pick-and-rolls and two-handed set shots gave way to Daryl Dawkins' backboard-shattering Chocolate Thunder dunks, Pistol Pete Maravich's inspired improvisations, and a thrilling style of up-tempo fast-break basketball. In baseball, the exciting stolen base play came back from the dead; half deranged characters like Thurman Munson and Billy Martin snarled their way to championships, and pitchers like Luis Tiant and Mark "the Bird" Fidrych converted physical eccentricity into remarkable success.

But the players' truly lasting impact may have been on society as a whole. One of the first hit rap singles ever was "Basketball" by Kurtis Blow. A generation of kids grew up wanting not only to hit like Mickey Mantle but to dress like Walt Frazier, dance like Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, wear their hair like Oscar Gamble, pontificate like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and ride Harleys like John Matuzak. Rebels had taken over the house of squares, and you no longer needed to drop out to tune in. You could just as easily be an All-American.