NJ Perspective: Baseball Writers Should Forfeit Hall Of Fame Power

By their deeds, the Baseball Writers Association of America should forfeit their right to decide who makes the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame.

Let’s start with their most recent decisions. Keeping Curt Schilling out of the Hall of Fame for the past 10 years is disgraceful and indefensible.

Here is my twin brother Don Hurley’s case for Schilling from his Facebook Page. He has said it as well as anyone that I have seen.

“Curt Schilling was screwed by the baseball writers who snubbed him for enshrinement into The Baseball of Fame.

He changed baseball history. Schilling played in 12 postseason series. His team won 10 of them. In those series, Schilling was 11–2 with a 2.23 ERA.

He took the ball five times in postseason elimination games. His team went 5–0 in those win-or-go-home games, while Schilling was 4–0 with a 1.37 ERA.

No starting pitcher impacted postseason history more than Schilling (4.1 win probability added).

He is Don Drysdale with a better postseason résumé. Schilling retired with the greatest strikeout-to-walk rate since the mound distance was set in the 19th century.

He once struck out more than 300 batters with fewer walks (33) than starts (35).

He is one of only four pitchers to strike out 300 batters in a season three times since 1900. The others are Randy Johnson, Nolan Ryan, and Sandy Koufax.

Schilling should be in the Hall. He is the best player kept out of Cooperstown because sportswriters don’t like him personally. It’s wrong” wrote Don Hurley.

Schilling was a six-time All-Star, who amassed an impressive 216-146 record, with 3.46 ERA, 3116 strikeouts, 83 complete games, and 20 shutouts.

Schilling played for 20 years with the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Boston Red Sox.

One of Schilling’s most impressive statistics, he walked only 711 batters in 3,261 career innings.

Schilling is a three-time Cy Young award runner-up, twice in the National League and once in the American League.

Schilling’s regular-season statistics are undoubtedly Hall of Fame worthy, but he was at his best as a big-game pitcher in the postseason.

Schilling is a victim of cancel culture. The only reason he is not in the Hall of Fame years ago is because of his outspoken views.

Schilling was essentially canceled the morning after game four of winning the 2004 World Series when he came out publicly and vocally supportive of President George W. Bush.

Schilling has said that the cancel culture came after him ever since this point in time.

The biased demonstrated by the baseball riders association of America is not a new phenomenon.

Look at 1942 and 1947, “The Splendid Splinter,” Ted Williams led The American League in home runs, RBIs, and batting average … Commonly known as the Triple Crown of baseball. In both seasons, the baseball writers did not select Williams as The American League MVP.

The simple reason, was they didn’t like him and he didn’t like them.

Schilling was on the ballot for the 10th and final time this year. Also on this year's ballot for the last time were Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.

Both Bonds and Clemens had amassed Hall of Fame statistics before any allegations of performance-enhancing drugs came into play.

Schilling, Bonds, Clemens, and, yes Pete Rose should all have been elected to the Hall of Fame years ago.

The Veteran’s Committee should right these wrongs. They meet in 2022.

Shame on The Baseball Writers Association of America. A new process should be formulated for selecting Hall of Fame members and the yearly baseball top awards winners.

It’s a relic from the past to give sportswriters such unilateral power. They have squandered it away with the supreme bias they have demonstrated.