BWAA MUST VOTE TO INDUCT HIM IN 2020 …
This blog regularly exposes liberal media bias, which is typically committed by liberal writers and pundits against politically conservative politicians, policy makers, religious organizations, news outlets, TV commentators, etc. The most recent example of such bias was against the MAGA hat wearing boys from Kentucky’s Covington Catholic High School.
But today we call your attention to suspected liberal bias by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BWAA) in not voting to induct starting pitcher Curt Schilling into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame (HOF).
Curt Schilling had a remarkable 20-year major league career, from 1988 to 2007, with five different teams in both the National and American leagues. As a starting pitcher, he had a 216 – 146 record with a career ERA of 3.46 and 3,116 strikeouts (15th all-time, just one behind HOF starting pitcher Bob Gibson). Schilling holds the all-time best starting pitcher post-season record of 11 – 2 and 2.23 ERA. Curt led his teams to three championships (Arizona – 2001, Boston – 2004, 2007). Curt was named the NL Championship MVP in 1993 and World Series MVP in 2001. He was an all-star in six seasons (’97, ’98, ’99, ’01, ’02, ’04). He also won the Roberto Clemente Award in 2001, which is given annually to the Major League Baseball player who “best exemplifies the game of baseball, sportsmanship, community involvement and the individual’s contribution to his team.”
Sounds like a no-brainer HOF career, doesn’t it? But how does one know? How can one assess whether a major league pitcher deserves to be voted into the HOF? How does he compare to the other greats enshrined in Cooperstown?
Well, baseball is a stats driven game, arguably more than any other. So how do Curt Schilling’s stats stack up against other HOF pitchers? JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score system) was developed by sabermetrician Jay Jaffe as a means to measure a player’s Hall of Fame worthiness. A player’s JAWS ranking is their career WAR (Wins Above Replacement) averaged with their 7-year peak WAR (best seven WAR seasons). The current Hall of Famers are then grouped by position and a position average JAWS is computed. Here is a link to the JAWS table for starting pitchers and a screenshot of that table is provided below.
As you can see, according to the JAWS ranking system for MLB starting pitchers, Curt Schilling ranks 27th all-time, with only Roger Clemens #3 (steroids) and Jim McCormick #18 (???) ranked above him who have not yet been inducted into the HOF. Additional notes: 1) Mike Mussina #29 was just inducted in the 2019 HOF vote; and 2) other pitchers with JAWS rankings as low as Jesse Haines #308 have been inducted.
While some baseball critics prefer HOF pitchers to have won 250+ games and Cy Young awards, Schilling’s three World Series championships, 3,116 career strikeouts and post-season 11 – 2 record and 2.23 ERA certainly qualify him … just as the JAWS ranking bears out.
Curt Schilling was eligible to receive Hall of Fame (HOF) votes starting in 2013 and has 10 years to be inducted. The Baseball Writers’ Association of America (BWAA) has held the exclusive voting privilege to consider recently retired players for the National Baseball Hall of Fame since 1936. So the BWAA must certainly have already voted Schilling into the HOF, right?
Amazingly, no.
Schilling is heading into his eighth year of HOF eligibility, and the number of votes he receives each year continues to rise, according to Ryan Thibodaux, who does a great job tracking this sort of thing. Here are the BWAA HOF voting percentages that Schilling received in the past seven years (75% is needed for induction):
- 2013 – 38.8%
- 2014 – 29.2%
- 2015 – 39.2%
- 2016 – 52.3%
- 2017 – 45.0%
- 2018 – 51.2%
- 2019 – 60.9%
So why the snub for such an obviously qualified candidate?
If you ask Schilling, the reason is pure political bias. The majority of BWAA membership are liberal and Curt is a proud conservative. He hasn’t shied away from speaking his mind, making his share of right-leaning statements, and taking bold stands. For example … He believes the U.S. Constitution is a perfect document as written, he publicly campaigned for President George W. Bush’s re-election in 2004, he railed against performance enhancing drugs in sports, he spoke out against muslim extremism, he chimed in on the practical pitfalls of transgenderism, and, worst of all, he had the racist audacity to wear a red MAGA hat, like those Kentucky boys from Covington Catholic High School.
Finally, there’s something else you should know about Curt Schilling. He was very close to his father, and was devastated when his father died in January 1988. Later that year, Schilling made the major leagues, but his father had not lived to see it. Schilling told ESPN: “My father was the glue that held us together. When he died, I kind of lost my family.” For the next 20 years, Curt left a will call ticket for his father at every game he played in, because he wanted his dad to tell him when they saw each other again someday: “You never forgot me.”
Curt Schilling’s last chance for HOF induction is 2022.
BWAA: Leave politics aside, do the honorable thing, and vote this deserving player and good man into the HOF.
