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Date: 2/3/2021
I love baseball.
To me, there are few things more enjoyable than being at Fenway Park, crammed into a seat in the bleachers that is too small with the sun in my face, a scorecard on my lap, a little pencil in one hand and a $15 beer in the other.
As a lifelong Boston Red Sox fan, I was fortunate enough to only live through 22 years of the fabled championship drought and while I wasn’t old enough to remember the legendary error by “Bill friggin’ Bucknah” in the 1986 World Series, I recall all too well being downright inconsolable for weeks after the 2003 American League Championship in which Grady Little left Pedro Martinez in just one pitch too long.
I’ll also never forget the elation of the 2004 World Series season that included finally beating the New York Yankees in the ALCS – a moment that draws 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team where-were-you-when type nostalgia in this region.
One of the central figures to that championship, of course, was pitcher Curt Schilling. To this day, I believe that then-Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein flying to have Thanksgiving dinner with Schilling’s family was the turning point for the organization and its loveable loser persona.
But once known for his “bloody sock” game that helped solidify his reputation as one of the best postseason performers in the history of the game, Schilling has now become a controversial figure as he once again failed to reach the Baseball Hall of Fame – not because of his playing prowess, but because of his political stances.
The Baseball Writers Association of America, whose membership is the major driver in determining the list of inductees each year, failed to elect Schilling again with 71.1 percent of ballots endorsing his enshrinement. A player needs 75 percent for inclusion.
Of course, Schilling has always been a lightning rod, whether it was his reputation as a guy who would call into sports radio talk shows to argue with hosts or the fact that has never shied away from or tried to hide his conservative beliefs, even during his playing days. After the 2004 season, for example, he publicly supported President George W. Bush’s reelection campaign, which made some waves in certain circles.
But in his post-playing career, his issues have gotten worse. Schilling’s 38 Studios video game development company closed just months after its first release in 2012 and defaulted on a large portion of a $75 million loan guarantee from Rhode Island’s Economic Development Corporation. The company filed for bankruptcy as state and federal authorities began launching investigations.
His political takes also started to become more extreme. In 2016, ESPN fired him as an analyst after transphobic social media posts. In 2016, he came under fire again for applauding a shirt that read, “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required.” He said he was being sarcastic. In 2019, he called Bubba Wallace a liar on Twitter after the Black NASCAR driver’s team reported finding a noose in his garage at Talladega Speedway. Schilling suggested it was a stunt devised by Wallace himself. And most recently, Schilling tweeted out support of those who conducted an assault on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
For some writers, the latest was a bridge too far and they left Schilling off their ballots. It was reported that some who initially voted for Schilling reached out to have their ballots returned so they could amend them and remove the former six-time All Star and three-time champion.
Now, the Hall of Fame’s selection process is and has been broken for a long time. The simple fact that the home run king, Barry Bonds, as well as Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa remain barred from the hall in spite of the fact that they saved baseball’s popularity in the late 90s and early 2000s is telling enough. But Schilling’s case brings about one of the most compelling arguments for an overhaul of the process.
Even before the controversies mounted, Schilling’s Hall of Fame case was precarious. He doesn’t carry a lot of the benchmark career statistics that earn a player admission. Where he has separated himself was the postseason, including the bloody sock, where he was dominant, winning 11 games and losing just two with a 2.23 ERA, four complete games and two shutouts while earning Co-MVP honors in the 2001 World Series with Arizona, National League Championship Series MVP for the Philadelphia Phillies in 1993, and, of course, the two titles with Boston. Whether his postseason accolades outweigh the very good, but not great volume statistics of his regular season career has been the subject of debate for some time.
But from the looks of things, Schilling isn’t being held out of the Hall of Fame because of his on-field abilities, but rather his post-career political positions. This is a problem.
I understand we now live in a world in which the lines of sports and politics are blurred, for better and for worse. But the Baseball Hall of Fame’s own mission statement says its purpose is to “preserve the sport's history, honor excellence within the game and make a connection between the generations of people who enjoy baseball.” Now, the voting criteria does state, “Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played” and the words “character” and “integrity” are ones voters are using as their “out” for Schilling. And this is where the issue lies. The Hall of Fame is supposed to be about preserving the game’s history, not about who the writers who cover the sport liked at the time.
To try to invoke clauses of integrity and character to in a twisted way protect the Hall of Fame is laughable when that building currently immortalizes some questionable characters and barely let Jackie Robinson in at all. Ty Cobb was an unabashed racist with a history of violent assaults on and off the field and he bet on games. Rogers Hornsby was said to be a member of the Ku Klux Klan and had Catholic players released from his teams due to his own prejudices. Robinson just snuck into the Hall of Fame by four votes. Imagine that – a Baseball Hall of Fame without Jackie Robinson. There are numerous other examples of players who have admitted to cheating who are in the Hall of Fame as well as a commissioner who oversaw the steroid era that now is the reason many greats are kept out.
The fact of the matter is this: If you are a voter, it shouldn’t matter whether you think Curt Schilling is a miserable puke with abhorrent beliefs. He is, by the way. The question should be whether you think he had a Hall of Fame-worthy baseball career. To me, his on-field record says no, by the way. But if the former impacts your thinking on the latter, you’re doing it wrong. And a lot of writers just did it wrong.