Curt Schilling believes his conservative views are keeping him out of baseball's Hall of Fame
Former Major League Baseball star Curt Schilling weighs in on his omission from Cooperstown, President Trump's agenda and re-election chances.
Curt Schilling found at least one prominent defender in Hall of Fame reliever Goose Gossage on Friday.
Schilling, who missed the Hall of Fame by five percentage points earlier this week, had accused baseball writers of playing politics and not liking him because he’s a conservative and a supporter of former President Trump.
Gossage, who has made controversial comments about Democrats ruining baseball in the past, said he didn’t have a "problem" when it came to some of Schilling’s comments in his post-playing career, which ranged from anti-Muslim rhetoric to supporting those who rioted at the U.S. Capitol earlier this month.
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"He’s a bit of a blowhard, but I don’t have a problem with freedom of speech. Everybody wants to be this counterculture now where you can’t even have an opinion," Gossage told NJ.com in a wide-ranging Q&A on Friday. "With Schilling, you shake your head, but at least it’s America. You used to be able to say what the hell was on your mind. I think a lot of writers play games with the voting politically. I just don’t understand a lot of the voting. Not only is Schilling kind of confused by this. I’ve been confused."
When asked about what he was confused about, Gossage asked rhetorically why Dick Allen or Graig Nettles weren’t in the Hall of Fame. Gossage didn’t appear to be too frightful about what Schilling would say in his potential Hall of Fame induction speech.
"It depends on what he had to say. I never thought that politics and sports mix. Look what they’ve done. Taking a knee. Black Life Matter. What a bunch of crap. Go out on a street corner for a real cause. They take the fans down with them to have to look at this crap. I’m not saying there aren’t causes that we shouldn’t stand up for at all. Not on the field," Gossage said.
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Whether Schilling belongs in the Hall of Fame based on his statistics is a different question for Gossage.
The famed former New York Yankees pitcher told NJ.com that if Mike Mussina was in the Hall of Fame, then Schilling should be in. But he said he didn’t think Mussina should necessarily be in the Hall of Fame.
Gossage’s take on Friday was a complete 180 from what Reggie Jackson told the outlet Thursday.
Jackson told NJ.com that Schilling only had himself to blame for not making it into the Hall and added that the pitcher’s politics weren’t really a factor.
Schilling missed out on the Hall of Fame by 5 percentage points. (AP Photo/Winslow Townson, File)
Schilling told Clay Travis on the radio host’s "Outkick the Coverage" show Wednesday that he believed it was his support for Trump that kept him out of the Hall of Fame.
"The hatred for President Trump and conservatives runs deep," he said.
Schilling added: "You got 90% White, liberal college males standing in a clubhouse of players of every race, some don’t even have an eighth-grade education but are making $25 million a year. [The writers], who graduated from Harvard, are bitter."
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Nobody made the cut for this year’s Hall of Fame ballot. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens were left off as well.
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