Baseball and sports in general have a certain beauty about it. It’s the country’s unifier. When things are going rough, sports are always there. One of the most beautiful moments in sports history was Mike Piazza’s game-winning home run at Shea Stadium while the nation grieved over 9/11. Heck, even this last season with a pandemic raging, sports kept us entertained through it. Uniting means pushing aside people’s beliefs even if they may be extreme. Ty Cobb, one of the greatest hitters of all time was a well-known racist and not appreciated by many people. He was elected to the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in 1936. That being said, Curt Schilling should be in Cooperstown.
Curt Schilling had a long and lustrous career spanning from 1988-2007. A six-time all-star, he appeared in three world series and finished runner-up in Cy Young voting three times. He had over 200 career wins and a career 3.47 earned run average with 3,116 career strikeouts which is 15th all-time. He was excellent at getting guys out. Every player 1-14 is a member of the Hall of Fame and the player after him, C.C. Sabathia will definitely be a future Hall of Famer. To sum it all up, he was an excellent starting pitching with a lot of weapons.
Cooperstown is merit-based. It takes into account excellence regarding statistical achievement. It separates the good players from the great players. As stated earlier, Ty Cobb is in the hall of fame based on stats alone. There are plenty of hall of fame players across all sports who’ve done controversial things over the years and Curt Schilling’s support of the Capital City Riots is no exception.
There is a separate award for good behavior in baseball called the Roberto Clemente Award. Personally, I would never consider Schilling for this.
