The ballots for the Baseball Hall of Fame are out, and Phillies Wall of Fame pitcher Curt Schilling is among the names on the ballot. Schilling was on the Class of 2013 ballot, but the Baseball Writers Association of American did not vote any player in to the hall last year. With the Class of 2014 ballots out, many are making statements about who they believe should be in or not. Few do it as directly or frank as Howard Eskin, who has gone on record saying Schilling should not make the cut in Cooperstown…
Players that didn’t make it last year @baseballhall curt Schilling @gehrig38,jeff bagwell should fail again this year.
— Howard Eskin (@howardeskin) November 27, 2013
Schilling wasted little time in responding to this thought by taking to his own Twitter account…
The day Howard Eskin’s opinion matters to me, or to the HoF, will be the day the HoF ceases to be a special place.
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) November 27, 2013
Eskin is entitled to his opinion of course, just as much as you or I. Depending on your criteria for what a true Hall of Fame caliber player is, maybe Schilling does not make the cut. Maybe he is. I have always been of the belief that Schilling is a fringe Hall of Fame player, and I would lean toward saying “Yes, he is a Hall of Fame pitcher” if I needed to make the call.
Schilling may not have the individual regular season honors other enshrined pitchers may have, but you can’t just look past what Schilling has done in the postseason as if that does not matter. Schilling is one of the best postseason pitchers I have watched over the past 20 years, from his time with the Phillies to helping Arizona win a World Series and his storied role with the Boston Red Sox. Postseason success matters, and Schilling more often than not delivered in October. Schilling was 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA with four complete games and two shutouts in his 19 postseason games. And as I have said before, Schilling is the best pitcher the Phillies had in the 1990s. Maybe that is a low bar, but Schilling cleared it like an Olympian.
So I disagree with Eskin here. I think Schilling should be voted in to the Hall of Fame, and I believe it will happen at some point. Whether that happens this year or not, I am not sure.
For the record, Schilling did not include his name on his Hall of Fame ballot…
My ballot (no 38 on it)Bags, Biggio, Glavine, Maddux, Edgar, Raines, Thomas Trammell Walker, (Raines = 1st Ballot guy)
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) November 27, 2013
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