Schilling: Worthy of Cooperstown?
What exactly makes a player HOF material? Numbers, iconic moments, clutch performances? These all describe what we look for in a player to be elected into the HOF and for some current pitchers such as Greg Maddux, Randy Johnson, Trevor Hoffman, Mariano Rivera and Tom Glavine there is no doubt among the minds of voters they will all be first ballot Hall of Fame inductees. However, when you think of Curt Schilling there is no other player, minus players suspected of using performance enhancing drugs, that is more debatable as to whether or not he is worthy of Cooperstown.
Curt Schilling currently sits at 216 wins, 146 losses, 3116 strike outs and 3.46 ERA, 6-Time All-Star, 3-Time World Series Champ, ‘01 WS Co-MVP, 11-2 in Post Season performance. The only number that jumps out is that he has more than 3,000 K’s, a number that has only been achieved by 16 pitchers. Of the 10 retired members only Bert Blyleven has not been inducted into Cooperstown and he has 287 Wins and 3,701 strike outs. The number that hurts Blyleven is the 250 losses suffered mostly at the hands in his early career with a dismal Twins team. Curt Schilling is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished post-season pitchers in history. Schilling has led the Phillies, Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox to World Series appearances, certainly a remarkable feat. Schilling also had three 300 strike out seasons, a very impressive feat.
Final analysis?
Because Schilling is not on the level of a Randy Johnson or a Tom Glavine, he’s not first ballot caliber. However, he is good enough, based on his competitiveness, his strikeout totals, and his postseason success, to get on somewhere between try 5 and try 10. Pitching in the steroids era, steroids free, means Schilling’s numbers could have been even better minus some injuries and pitching to jacked up batters that took the offensive game to another level. If Curt Schilling’s career is over I believe he should be a Hall of Famer and would respectably represent MLB and the Boston Red Sox in Cooperstown.
Save to Browser Favorites
Ask
backflip
blinklist
BlogBookmark
Bloglines
BlogMarks
Blogsvine
BUMPzee!
CiteULike
co.mments
Connotea
del.icio.us
DotNetKicks
Digg
diigo
dropjack.com
dzone
Facebook
Fark
Faves
Feed Me Links
Friendsite
folkd.com
Furl
Google
Hugg
Jeqq
Kaboodle
kirtsy
linkaGoGo
LinksMarker
Ma.gnolia
Mister Wong
Mixx
MySpace
MyWeb
Netvouz
Newsvine
PlugIM
popcurrent
Propeller
Reddit
Rojo
Segnalo
Shoutwire
Simpy
Slashdot
Sphere
Sphinn
Spurl.net
Squidoo
StumbleUpon
Technorati
ThisNext
Webride
Windows Live
Yahoo!
Email This to a Friend
If you like this then please subscribe to the Tags: Boston Red Sox, HOF, Schilling
June 25th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
I may be biased coming from Mass but Schilling has been the driving force of a few teams helping two of them win WS titles. Some stats including strike outs rank up there with the best of them. Barring injuries throughout his career those stats would have been inflated even more. He will be inducted at some point and go in as a Red Sox.