Was Curt Schilling's right-leaning political views what kept him out of the Hall of Fame?
The BBWA revealed their ballots for the 2015 class on Tuesday afternoon, and it featured a trio of starting pictures in Pedo Martinez, Randy Johnson, and John Smoltz.
2015 Cooperstown Class Revealed
Curt Schilling jumped a full 10 percentage points from last year's results, but his 39.2 perce t tally is still significantly short of the mandatory 75 percent required for admittance into the Hall. Did the writers truly think Schilling's career wasn't up to snuff with those fellow starters? Well, the pitcher himself thinks there's a lot more to it than that.
“I think he got in because of [Greg] Maddux and [Tom] Glavine," Schilling said to WEEI Boston, referring to John Smoltz. "I think the fact that they won 14 straight pennants. I think his ‘Swiss army knife versatility,’ which somebody said yesterday, I think he got a lot of accolades for that, I think he got a lot of recognition for that.
“And I think the other big thing is that I think he’s a Democrat and so I know that, as a Republican, that there’s some people that really don’t like that.”
Curt Schilling Argues Against Theory of Evolution on Twitter
Schilling is right in that his career really does have a legitimate case for Hall of Fame induction, but he's just wrong about why it hasn't happened. Nobody is holding his conservative beliefs against him. Moreover, John Smoltz isn't even a Democrat; he's donated almost $10,000 to various Republican political campaigns in his lifetime, according to Masslive.
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