The National Baseball Hall of Fame class of 2022 ballot became public this week, and there is plenty of talent on it.
One name shouldn’t be on the ballot, however: Curt Schilling. That’s because the Baseball Writers Association of America should have voted him in years ago. The outspoken, Trump-supporting conservative is on the writers’ ballot for the 10th and final time. The liberal writers have a chance to correct their mistake and finally vote him in because he’s a Hall of Fame-worthy player — regardless of what they think of his politics.
Schilling had a great career that spanned 20 seasons. He had a respectable 3.46 career earned run average, pitching primarily in the steroid era. He struck out 3,116 batters in the regular season, the most of any non-Hall of Famer who wasn’t caught using performance-enhancing drugs (unlike Roger Clemens) and is Hall of Fame-eligible.
He’s also one of the best postseason pitchers of all time. His 4.092 win probability added in 19 postseason starts (11-2, 2.23 ERA) is the best in MLB history. And while some might knock him for having 216 career wins, it’s a bad stat to use to judge a pitcher. In 2018, Jacob DeGrom went 10-9 with a 1.70 ERA the first time he won the National League Cy Young Award — he was still a better pitcher than every pitcher who had more wins than him that season.
And yet, because Schilling is a conservative who has made controversial statements over the years, many liberal writers refuse to vote for him.
That’s not to defend what Schilling has said, some of which is downright stupid and indefensible. However, the National Baseball Hall of Fame is a place to recognize great baseball talent, and it includes a lot of less-than-savory people whose sins far exceed those of Schilling.
Schilling describing a shirt that called for lynching journalists “awesome” was awful. His meme comparing Islam to Nazi Germany, which got him punished by ESPN, was a bad look and a prime example of how the Right needlessly alienates people who should be allies. And it’s bad that he used his platform to push the lie that former President Donald Trump was the actual winner of the 2020 presidential election.
This isn’t the politics Hall of Fame, however. The Hall of Fame includes segregationists such as Cap Anson, who refused to play against black players in exhibition games. Longtime Atlanta Braves star Chipper Jones is in, even though he called the Sandy Hook mass shooting a hoax on Twitter. And longtime Boston Red Sox owner Tom Yawkey is in, even though his team didn’t sign a black player until 1959, 12 years after the first black player of the 20th century, Jackie Robinson, made his MLB debut.
There are also people in the Hall of Fame who have endorsed liberal Democrats with extreme positions or failures. The late Hank Aaron supported former President Barack Obama, who opposed banning sex-selective abortion as president and killed hundreds of civilians with drone strikes.
So while Schilling definitely should not run for political office, he deserves a plaque in Cooperstown. Whether or not he has good political views isn’t what’s important here. It’s his skill, and he had a good enough career to make it.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
