Shilling for Curt Schilling

He should have been in the Hall of Fame years ago.

What a difference nine years can make.

In 2013, Curt Schilling’s first year of eligibility for Baseball’s Hall of Fame, he was selected on 38.8% of the ballots when 75% were needed to be inducted.

Then his vote total fell by nearly 10 percentage points in 2014. He then made big jumps the following two years, then fell again, then improved for four years in a row, reaching 70% in 2020 and 71% in 2021.

This year, his tenth and final year of eligibility for induction by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), Schilling’s total fell again to 58.6%. After last year’s vote, Schilling had asked to be taken off the BBWAA ballot, and I don’t know how many respected his wishes, and how many kept him off for other reasons.

Those “other reasons” are mainly controversial social and political opinions he’s made since his retirement, including statements about the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot. It’s speculated that Schilling realized writers who were on the fence about him weren’t going to give him the honor, and expressed his preference that if he were to be voted in, it would be by the Hall of Fame’s Veterans Committee instead of the BBWAA.

I wonder if the two other years he lost votes also had to do with political…