Curt Schilling; Hall of Famer?

I saw an interview with Curt on Monday night in which a local Boston sports reporter asked him point-blank if he considered himself a hall of famer.

Shill replied with a quick, “No”. He continued on to explain how he was okay with that and how happy he was looking back at his career.

No one can say that Curt has been one to suppress his thoughts but he is an extremely humble man.

I was more than a bit surprised at how definitive Curt’s answer was. He was so certain he has no chance at making the Hall. Apparently other people are as surprised as I am. Both Boston and national papers seem to be at least open to the Curt Schilling is a Hall of Fame player argument.

Whether it should be or not, the most important number is the regular season win total. Curt only has 216 wins, way shy of the 300 win pinnacle. However both Pedro Martinez and John Smoltz have similar win totals and they seem to be sure fire Hall of Famers.

The argument for Schill stems from his post season performance. As Tony Mas’ writes, “Postseason accomplishments are memorable, but they constitute a relatively small portion of a player’s career on the whole. In Schilling’s case, 19 of his 588 career appearances came in the postseason, a number that translates into roughly 3 percent.”

They are some overwhelming numbers though. In those 19 appearances Curt went 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA. His teams have won three World Series rings, in which he was of tremendous importance to those accomplishments.

In those other 6 games in which Schilling did not receive a decision; his team was still 3-3. In those 6 games Schill pitched 8, 8, 7, 7.1, 7 and 4.2 innings respectively. In actuality 5 of the 6 no decisions were quality starts.

Congrats on a great career and I still look forward to reading 38 Pitches and hearing you on Boston sports radio.