Curt Schilling got what he deserved yet again with Hall of Fame snub

Curt Schilling can pay the admission price to look at his paint-covered sock at the Baseball Hall of Fame, just like the rest of us.

When the Baseball Hall of Fame finally presents its class of 2020 at an induction ceremony at least one calendar year after it should’ve happened, Derek Jeter will take to the stage to talk about the majesty of the pinstripes. Larry Walker will be there to tell an entire nation that occasionally, if a young hockey star is crazy enough, he might just persevere to greatness in an entirely different sport.

And Curt Schilling will be on Twitch, live-streaming a rant about why Nancy Pelosi has satanic blood.

Yankees fans were first on the Schilling-hating bandwagon, and let history show that we were utterly correct all along, long before the man’s abhorrent views leaked into the mainstream, then became mainstream themselves.

Schilling did not garner election to the Baseball Hall of Fame on Tuesday, though he became tantalizingly close, and may someday serve as the answer to a trivia question: Which retired great missed election by the fewest votes?

Also, which retired great spent his entire post-retirement time in the public eye laying the groundwork for the violent overthrow of the government?

Ah, yes, that makes sense. Because Curt Schilling’s last two weeks have been the only clear indicator that he’s beyond reproach. That’s it. No prior warning he was indefensible.

Not the decades of belittling and immoral messages and memes attached to his personal social media accounts. Not the dehumanizing of trans people he performed, nor the encouraging of hanging journalists — something that definitely happens in other authoritarian nations — muted with the message that he was simply kidding!

The venerated right-hander was fired by ESPN for crossing one, final bridge back in 2016, and yet here we are in 2021, watching certain writers finally find their conscience only in the weeks after such a stand would’ve actually mattered. Luckily, they didn’t spend Tuesday watching their worst nightmare get validated, the bloody sock forever on their hands. Close, though.

Schilling is famous for “just asking questions!” until, suddenly, a group of people he’s spent the better part of the decade riling up and encouraging just happen to actually grab their weapons and try to do something with them. Oops.

This is not an attempt to “cancel” Schilling; that is a fake word, Schilling is a very rich man (though not as rich as he could’ve been if he knew anything about the video game business!), and he will continue living his happy and extremely loud life in his own bigoted corner.

No one is silencing him. He can be as apoplectic as he wants to on a larger platform than the Hall’s stage in sleepy Cooperstown.

If anyone canceled Schilling this year, it was Schilling himself, who requested he be removed from next year’s ballot, lest he suffer the slings and arrows of a 10th judgment.

Yet again, the voters have used the character clause to bar a borderline candidate buoyed by postseason greatness entry to the Hall of Fame. Schilling is Andy Pettitte’s resume in wolf’s clothing, and he’s not taking that wolf clothing off any time soon.

Seems like Schilling will be banking on his fellow players, eventually, to do what the writers have refused to do: forget about anything they ever watched him do outside the locker room.

Yankees: 4 best deals in MLB Winter Meetings history

The New York Yankees have been known to do some wheeling and dealing at the feverish MLB Winter Meetings, which are virtual for 2020! Damn.