Curt Schilling has had enough.
On Tuesday, the outspoken MLB pitching great shared a letter he wrote to the Baseball Hall of Fame after coming up short in voting for a ninth straight year.
“I will not participate in the final year of voting,” he wrote in the message shared to Facebook. “I am requesting to be removed from the ballot. I’ll defer to the veterans committee and men whose opinions actually matter and who are in a position to actually judge a player.”
The Hall of Fame board said it would consider Schilling’s request.
Schilling, along with Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, were the top three vote-getters in 2021, with none reaching the 75% voting mark on BBWAA ballots. Schilling was closest with 71.1 percent.
“I don’t think I’m a hall of famer as I’ve often stated,” he continued, “but if former players think I am then I’ll accept that with honor.”
The 54-year-old, who pitched for five teams over a 20-year MLB career — winning World Series titles with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 2007 — won 216 games with a 3.46 career ERA, racking up 3,116 strikeouts, good for 15th all-time. Where he stood out was in the postseason, where he compiled an 11-2 record in 19 starts, including a 4-1 mark and 2.06 ERA in seven World Series starts.
Schilling’s post-baseball life has been controversial. He was suspended from an ESPN gig at the Little League World Series after he compared Muslim extremists to Nazi-era Germans in a tweet. His later Facebook post about transgender people caused his firing from the network.
A day after the attack on the U.S. Capitol, he wrote on Twitter: “You cowards sat on your hands, did nothing while liberal trash looted rioted and burned for air Jordan’s and big screens, sit back …. and watch folks start a confrontation for (expletive) that matters like rights, democracy and the end of govt corruption.”
Ballots had already been due by the time of the attack.
In recent years, he has railed against the media, whom he believes has painted him unfairly.
“The media has created a Curt Schilling that does not and has never existed,” he wrote. “It’s one of the things that has allowed me to sleep at night. Not an ounce of that is to absolve myself of sin, Lord knows I’ve committed my share and will do so again. Never malicious, never to willfully or intentionally hurt another person. I was 100% accountable and still am. Even the thought of responding to claims of ‘nazi’ or ‘racist’ or any other term so watered down and rendered meaningless by spineless cowards who have never met me makes me ill. In modern times responding to such drivel somehow validates the claim.”
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