Major league baseball player Curt Schilling just retired after 23 indelible seasons in the show, and already the debate is raging: is he worthy of induction in the Hall of Fame or not? With both confidence and hesitation, I believe the man is worthy of enshrinement in Cooperstown. Ironically, the most important factor that earns Schilling my vote is the very same thing that Schilling rightfully dismissed when discussing the rival New York Yankees’ dominance over his Boston Red Sox during the historic 2004 season: aura and mystique. For all of his numeric shortcomings as a Hall of Fame candidate, Curt Schilling still should be granted membership into that exclusive club of baseball greats because of the aura and mystique surrounding his postseason performances – performances that always will rank among the greatest the game has ever seen.
Let’s get the hesitation out of the way first. Judged solely on his regular season statistics, Curt Schilling is definitely not a Hall of Fame pitcher. Perhaps the best way his career can be described is years of underachievement followed by solid years of intermittent dominance and injury. The overall numbers, with the exception of his extraordinary control, are not eye-popping: a 216-146 record with a 3.46 ERA, a 1.14 WHIP and 3,116 strikeouts. These are impressive numbers all around, but not ..Cooperstown.. worthy by most standards. Compared to perennial Hall of Fame underdog Bert Blyleven’s career numbers – 287 wins, a 3.30 ERA, 1.20 WHIP and 3,701 strikeouts (but in a more pitcher-friendly era, it must be noted) – Schilling’s numbers don’t quite add up despite the slight edge in WHIP. The immediate rationale, then, is that if Bert Blyleven is not worthy of admittance to the Hall of Fame (which he appears not to be according to the voters), then neither is Curt Schilling. This is the point at which some in the pro-Schilling crowd will argue that his numbers would have been better had he not lost parts of seven of his seventeen full seasons in the majors due to injury. Of course, that argument is always followed in knee-jerk fashion by the anti-Schilling crowd’s “Don Mattingly” argument, which goes like this: if Don Mattingly, whose stellar career with the Yankees was cut short by injury, isn’t worthy of the Hall of Fame because of the time he lost to injury, then neither is Curt Schilling (or anybody else for that matter). I think the injury argument is weak in either player’s case: assuming Schilling had pitched full-time every season, his numbers probably still would not have reached certain Hall of Fame levels, while Mattingly’s initial back injury occurred so early in his career that it practically snuffed his Hall of Fame chances in that instant. These injuries are more of a legitimate argument in his favor because, based on other circumstances, Schilling is closer to being a true Hall of Famer than Mattingly is; that is, slightly improved regular season numbers might have solidified Schilling’s Cooperstown odds while merely increasing Mattingly’s odds a few percentage points. Injuries or not, no matter how you stack the numbers in Curt Schilling’s regular season career, these numbers neither secure nor quash his chances of being voted into the Hall of Fame; they merely make one pause a bit before examining his other possible Hall of Fame qualifications.
While Curt Schilling’s regular season career has no make-or-break effect on his ..Cooperstown.. chances, it can be argued that Schilling’s postseason career definitely has a make-or-break effect on those chances. Whether it’s fair or not, a player’s postseason performance can – and, assuming the player has a long enough postseason career from which to pass fair judgment, should – have an effect on his candidacy for the Hall of Fame. The question of fairness must be addressed because the anti-Schilling crowd will use part two of the Don Mattingly argument. The question inevitably asked by many of this opinion goes something like this: is it really Don Mattingly’s fault that he reached the postseason only one time in his injury-shortened career? Of course it isn’t because baseball is, after all, a team sport. The only answer I have for those who prefer to dismiss or at least diminish a player’s postseason performance as a measuring tool for that player’s Hall of Fame candidacy is simple: life isn’t fair. Mattingly got the shaft not only because of his chronic back problems, but also because he happened to play for the Yankees during their longest championship drought ever. If Mattingly wants to curse anybody for his fate (though, to his credit, he has been much too gracious to do so), he should begin and end with George Steinbrenner, whose constant meddling doomed the Yankees during this drought. Curt Schilling, on the other hand, while suffering some injuries that surely damaged his statistical credentials for the Hall of Fame, did not suffer the same postseason fate as Don Mattingly. And, one could argue, given the opportunity to produce when the pressure to perform is at its most intense, nobody performed as well as Schilling: an 11-2 postseason record in 19 postseason starts with a 2.23 ERA, 120 strikeouts and a 0.97 WHIP. Those numbers are nothing short of ridiculous. Toss out that horrible start in Game 1 of the 2004 ALCS – horrible only because of an injury so severe he shouldn’t have been out there in the first place – and those numbers are even more dramatic: an 11-1 record with a 1.87 ERA and 0.91 WHIP. Those numbers represent the closest to a sure thing major league baseball might ever see in the postseason – can that fact ever be overrated? I don’t think so. So though it might be a shame that many great players never had the opportunity to pile up such incredible playoff achievements the way Curt Schilling did, to begrudge or belittle Schilling’s virtuoso success under the brightest lights merely because he was fortunate enough to have been there in the first place makes no sense whatsoever.
Curt Schilling’s postseason statistics are amazing, but there still will be many people who argue that those statistics do not merit him a place in the Hall of Fame. To that point a second argument can be made: like it or not, the Baseball Hall of Fame is just that: a hall of fame. What kind of place would it be if it were just the Hall of Statistics? Or the Hall of Achievements? Obviously statistics and achievements play the biggest part in determining a player’s admission into the Hall of Fame, but those are not the only criteria. There is a third part – an intangible quality – that factors into the process. This unquantifiable part is necessary because without it, entrance to the Hall would become strictly a numbers game. In this hypothetical, completely statistical method there might be set numeric standards (adjusted for different eras, of course) that everyone – the players, managers, owners, fans, sportswriters, etc – knew would make or break a player’s chances for making the Hall of Fame. How is this the least bit interesting? Don’t get me wrong: in most instances I am a vocal advocate of objectivity; the Hall of Fame, however, is different. By definition it cannot be strictly objective. The Hall of Fame was created to honor individuals who made lasting contributions to the game of baseball, whether those contributions are well known (as in the case of Josh Gibson, Eddie Mathews and Tony Gwynn) or almost completely overlooked (as in the case of early Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss, former White Sox and Indians manager Al Lopez and Negro League pitcher Leon Day). The Hall of Fame was created with the fans in mind, too: it not only gives them a place to recall the great players and great moments that created some of the most lasting memories, it also gives them a place to learn about some of the less famous people whose contributions should be remembered. Curt Schilling, by virtue of his extensive success in the most important of games – as well as a regular season career that was by no means average – has earned a place in that former category of Hall of Fame players. Two generations of baseball fans, whether they loved or hated him, will never forget the contributions of Curt Schilling. They will remember a baseball player who consistently saved his best for the games that mattered the most. They will remember a man who joyfully took on the challenge of helping a historically beleaguered franchise end an eighty-six year championship drought and then – health and career consequences be damned – delivered the goods and helped end that title drought. They will remember a ball player who, by the end of his career, had an air of invincibility about him under the most important and intense circumstances. In short, the fans will remember a Hall of Fame-quality starting pitcher.
Before the start of the 2001 World Series Curt Schilling, upon being asked if the young Diamondbacks franchise would have problems dealing with the tradition-heavy Yankees franchise, famously replied, "Aura and mystique? Those are dancers at nightclubs." In Curt Schilling’s case, aura and mystique were definitely not just names of dancers; they were near-tangible qualities he possessed, qualities he had earned through consistent regular season success and extraordinary postseason success. If that fact does not make a player worthy of the Hall of Fame, I’m not sure what would. Hopefully the baseball writers who actually vote on the matter will feel the same way.
