In the history of baseball, 16 pitchers have retired with 3,000 or more strikeouts, and 14 of them are in the Hall of Fame. The other two are Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. Clemens cheated, using banned steroids for years, and lied about it.
Schilling, on the other hand, has bad politics.
This winter, 30% of baseball writers voted to reject Schilling from the Hall of Fame (it takes 75% to get in), thus catapulting Cooperstown into the culture wars.
Schilling’s career was obviously Hall-worthy. He struck out 3,116 batters over his career. He’s the only pitcher in the past 30 years to throw 15 complete games in a season. In various years, he led the league in strikeouts, wins, winning percentage, complete games, starts, innings pitched, strikeouts per walk, fewest hits allowed per inning, and fewest walks allowed per inning.
And in October, Schilling was a master. He went 11-2 in the postseason, including four complete games, two of them shutouts. His postseason ERA was a rock-bottom 2.23. In 2001, Schilling won the title of World Series MVP, and in 2004, he famously threw seven innings, giving up one run to beat the hated Yankees in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series.
His career-earned run average of 3.46 is, admittedly, high for a Hall of Fame candidate, but recall Schilling was pitching in the steroids era. Also, Hall-of-Famers Tom Glavine and Dennis Eckersley both have higher career ERAs than Schilling does.
So, what kept Schilling out of the Hall in 2020? Tweets and politics.
ESPN fired Schilling as a commentator in 2016 after he posted on social media about transgender bathroom mandates. Since then, Schilling has associated himself with Breitbart News and failed miserably at a video game business.
Being a bad video game entrepreneur didn’t keep him out — expressing politically incorrect views and aligning with Trump supporters did.
The public is used to politics, particularly the sexual revolution and Trump hatred, infecting sports and pop culture. But it seems as though sports writers have now elevated “bad” politics to the level of cheating so as to keep a dominant pitcher of his era out of the Hall of Fame. Cancel culture has hit Cooperstown.
