Curt Schilling was again denied entry into the Hall of Fame.  This year, only one player passed the requirements to be enshrined — David Ortiz, who played mainly with the Boston Red Sox after being signed as a free agent from the Minnesota Twins.  Without taking anything away from Ortiz's abilities, he wouldn't be where he is without Schilling, one of the all-time greats.  Schilling, however, offended the leftists controlling the Hall of Fame and was left out in the cold.

Ortiz is a prime example of how metrics and analytics have been used to find one "needle in the haystack."  Boston management saw him as a player on the rise.

And was he ever.

Ortiz almost singlehandedly ended the "Curse of the Babe" by leading the Red Sox to the promised land after almost a century of futility.  He and his teammates accomplished it in fairy tale fashion by rallying from a 3-0 deficit to their most bitter rival, the New York Yankees, and then defeating in a sweep the St. Louis Cardinals, a franchise that had stymied them two previous times (1946 and 1967).

However, to do this, Ortiz needed help from another perennial all-star: Curt Schilling. 

Curt came to the Red Sox after he spent time with Houston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Arizona.  The latter two he helped to lead to National League pennants and a World Series.  With the Diamondbacks, Schilling bookended with Hall of Fame lefty Randy Johnson to rally Arizona from a 3-2 deficit to defeat the New York Yankees in a dramatic Game Seven in the 2001 World Series.

Schilling wasn't done pestering the Yanks, winning Game Six of the 2004 playoffs despite taking the mound with a stitched wound that opened, leaving his white sanitary socks and scarlet hose covered with blood as he held the Yankees to just two runs and six hits.   

While on the Red Sox, Schilling won over 200 games, in three 20-game winning seasons.  He hurled for four pennant-winning clubs and three world championship teams.  He helped bring their first championship in franchise history. 

Oh, and he helped end the "Curse," something that neither Jim Rice, Carl Yastrzemski, nor Ted Williams, all Hall of Fame members, could accomplish in their tenure at Fenway.

His WAR (Wins Above Replacement) record, which has become the sacred cow of the sports media and front office stat geeks, is 79.5.  This puts him at 26 among all-time pitchers.  That's players like Cy Young, Tom Seaver, Bob Gibson, Grover Cleveland Alexander, Walter Johnson, and Sandy Koufax.

Schilling's WAR is higher than 50-plus pitchers who are all in the Hall of Fame.

Fifty!

Contemporaries like Tom Glavine, Roy Halladay, Mariano Rivera, and Dennis Eckersley all score below him.  Even great pitchers from the low offense sixties and early seventies like Jim Palmer, Juan Marichal, Jim Bunning, Whitey Ford, and Don Drysdale were lower.

Even Koufax was below Schilling.

Heck!  Ortiz is two dozen WAR points behind Schilling.

Image: Curt Shilling by Google Man.  CC BY-SA 3.0.

Oh, and one more thing: Schilling placed second three times in the Cy Young Award, given annually to baseball's top pitcher.  His WAR in all three finishes was higher than the winner from the other league.

The baseball backdrop is to provide support for Schilling's obvious qualification for a place in the Hall of Fame as a superb performer on the baseball diamond.  However, his mound accomplishments are apparently lost in the fog of politics. 

Given his extraordinary performances, it seems that Schilling's membership in Cooperstown is being denied for his political views, tweets, and ideas, rather than his "mediocre" winning percentage (.597).  What did he do politically?  He campaigned for George Bush, supported John McCain, and criticized Hillary Clinton.  He also wrote for Breitbart News, which was the subject of a huge leftist boycott in 2016.

It's inevitable that part of the thinking that sports reporters do when contemplating votes for the Hall of Fame is built on personal prejudices.  A writer might ask himself, "Did I see him play?  Did I like to interview him?  Did he have an impact on the performance of the team?  Was he exciting to watch?  Did he have charisma, a certain hold on fans, media, and baseball officials that made them gravitate to him?"

Maybe reporters didn't like to interview Schilling, but his gutty performance on the field, his mark in baseball history, and his individual numbers should quell any other argument.  But with Schilling, they don't.

A sports media establishment that is increasingly open about its leftism seems to be showing intolerance and political bias to an extraordinary man because they disagree with his mainstream political views.  They may deny it, but it is becoming more and more obvious.

Schilling's denial to Cooperstown is a sham, a stain on baseball, and a stain on the Hall of Fame.