Many members of the Baseball Writers' Association of America, after submitting their Hall of Fame ballots, share their choices with the public and offer some thoughts and/or explanations.
David Laurila (FanGraphs) cast his first HoF ballot this year and two days ago (November 29), he posted what he called "a snapshot of my thought process". It included:
Curt Schilling did not get my vote. Call it contradictory if you will, but I couldn't in good conscience allow myself to hold him to same "what they did on the field" standard that I applied to the PED group. As important as baseball is, there are things far more important than baseball. As Jay stated in our recent FanGraphs Audio conversation, "It goes beyond politics… [Schilling] has documented examples of hate speech." In my mind, that's a disqualifier.
This is Schilling's ninth year on the ballot. He was named on 70% of ballots last year, just shy of the necessary 75% for induction. He will probably be inducted.
Craig Calcaterra ("Cup Of Coffee") remarked:
Because Dave greatly prefers to talk about baseball than politics, he devoted only 79 words to Curt Schilling . . . Given what some of us have said about Schilling — and the amount of ranting in which some of us engaged — what Dave wrote qualifies as profound and admirable restraint. He's a calm, quiet, and thoughtful type, though, so it's not like he was ever going to scream about anything until the wallpaper curled.
Schilling got wind of Laurila's column. And he reacted — at great length (1,454 words!). He was neither calm nor quiet nor thoughtful. Laurila made it crystal clear his decision to not vote for Schilling was based solely on his off-the-field behaviour, so naturally Schilling spent most of his time ranting about on-the-field matters.
I'll FJM this thing.
Schilling begins: "Hate that I am giving this [Laurila's column] more views than it deserves."
Yes, Curt hates to draw attention to the column . . . and proceeds to type 1,443 words (most of which have absolutely nothing to do with Laurila's short comment. Laurila's stance is far from original. Others have said the same thing about Schilling for years and far less subtly. In fact, he built his explanation around a comment from someone else (Jay Jaffe).
There isn't a SINGLE documented quote of "hate speech" in my existence. Unless you're a Muslim Extremist, a Nazi, or a white supremacist that is.
There isn't a SINGLE documented quote of "hate speech" in my existence. . . . EXCEPT for the hateful stuff I've posted about these three groups of people! Schilling insists he's never expressed a hateful "quote" towards "normal everyday people". (Speech does not have to be spoken words.) I will get back to this later.
Trump might not be an actual Nazi, but he imitates them a lot. In a three-week period over the summer, Trump was caught using Nazi symbolism and language three times! On June 11, Trump casually referred to the Secret Service
as the "S.S." On June 18, it was revealed that Trump's re-election campaign was running ads in all 50 states featuring an
inverted red triangle, which
the Nazis used to identify political prisoners, liberals, and members of opposition parties. And on July 2, Trump's campaign was
called out for its
reelection logo, which was
nearly identical to the Nazi eagle which is also used by modern white supremacist groups. The phrase "America First" was used by white supremacist and fascist groups in the 1930s. Trump famously refused to condemn white supremacy in one of the debates. (Schilling has
defended his collection of
Nazi memorabilia.)
My post here quotes Burt Neuborne, from his book
When at Times the Mob Is Swayed: A Citizen's Guide to Defending Our Republic, outlining the numerous similarities of Trump's and Hitler's communication styles and their relationships with the media.
He may post the trans picture I COMMENTED on. And if "men should use the men's room" is hate speech then I guess I am guilty.
Schilling mentions three postings that many people have labelled "hate speech" and disingenuously explains why they are not actually hateful. Schilling posted his anti-transgender meme in April 2016 (
and then defended it, calling the controversy "hilarious").
ESPN fired him. (The network had originally taken Schilling off its baseball broadcasts in August 2015 after he posted a meme equating Muslims with Nazis (see below), but reinstated him for postseason games.) Schilling is supposedly quoting himself, but what he has written above is not what he said. First, here is his post and comment:
Got that? The men's room was "designed for the penis", says alleged architect Curt Vandelay. of course, both men's and women's rooms have stalls which house toilets upon which one can sit. I guess you could say both rooms were designed for the ass.
This is true: Schilling said he was not a homophobe because his son started an LGBT club at his high school. Most people usually point to one of their own actions as evidence of their mindset. Oh, wait! Schilling said if anti-gay slurs offend you, you are a sensitive snowflake. Does that count?
If saying Hillary was so guilty she shouldn't be IN jail she should be in a cell under it is hate, then guilty.
Schilling misrepresents what he actually said here, as well. He did not say Hillary Clinton "should be in a cell under" the jail. He said "
she should be buried under a jail somewhere". A grave versus a holding pen. That's an important difference — and one Schilling has to lie about to make his point.
He may even post the T-shirt pic I commented on and NOT post the context in which that post was made (In which I was lamenting on the sports media committing suicide").
In November 2016, Schilling tweeted a picture of a man at a Trump rally wearing a shirt with the words: "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some Assembly Required." He added: "
OK, so much awesome here…" Schilling (using the name "President Elect Curt Schilling") defended the tweet as a joke (the usual fallback), calling it a "
smart ass shirt". When someone tweeted an objection, Schilling made a bee line for Godwin.
Schilling has since deleted the tweet after it offended the liberal "wusses." He said he was being sarcastic, that the shirt was sarcastic, that there are far worse shirts, and that people ought to be offended over Benghazi and all the abortion going on.
Those were Schilling's excuses at the time. I see no "lamenting . . . the sports media committing suicide", whatever the hell that means. I would have guessed the sports media (which he will later say is 80+% liberal, a number he pulled out of his ass) committing suicide would have made Schilling happy.
Schilling went 3-for-3. He intentionally misrepresented all three well-known instances in which he was accused of "hate speech". To explain how he was not actually being offensive, he had to lie in all three cases. (And he opened his rant by calling Laurila a liar. How Trumpian.)
[Sportswriters like Laurila] have ZERO qualms in lying to try and ruin someone else's reputation because they have no pride, no integrity, and no accountability. Like most liberals he believes he's smart enough to use the "what he was really saying is" or "What he meant was" and they've never even met me.
Right before explaining how "liberals" claim to know the thought process of someone else or what someone really meant — literally in the previous sentence! — Schilling claimed to know the thought process of someone else or what someone really meant to do.
Schilling then wanders off-track, complaining about Ed Wade for 130 words, listing 22 former teammates by name as "some of the finest men I've known", says he was teammates with "more than 5" gay players, and boasts he "talked with a few about the topic". He also brings up his wife's battle with breast cancer, saying "this whole charade causes her untold stress". He then writes an additional words, so let's hope she doesn't read his manifesto.
After this year I will no longer participate in the Hall of Fame process.
Craig Calcaterra, from December 1's "Cup of Coffee":
The best part is when he says "after this year I will no longer participate in the Hall of Fame process." Which is curious because there's actually no part for a candidate to play "in the Hall of Fame process" unless and until he's elected. [Calcaterra believes Schilling will receive the necessary votes.] Which makes the "after this year" part the most Schilling thing possible: a way for him to (a) sound like he's talking tough; while (b) saying nothing at all; and (c) still allowing himself to participate in all the glory of election, assuming he's elected. But he won't do it next year!
I won't get in because many of the writers have openly stated their hatred of my support of President Trump.
Two years ago, Mariano Rivera, a well-known Trump supporter, was the Hall of Fame's first unanimous selection in history. . . . Perhaps Trump is not the underlying issue here.
[T]hey are of the belief that . . . something they THINK you said, once, or did ONCE, defines you as a person. And in this case, top that off with the things they THINK I said or did never happened. The things they THINK I meant, or THINK I was implying, give them pause to question my character.
Schilling is clearly bothered by this aspect, that's what I THINK. But earlier in his rant, he wrote "something like 80+% of the sports media is liberal". . . . Ooops, there he goes again, defining an entire group of people by one possible attribute, claiming to know their inner-most thoughts.
I haven't struck out a hitter or won a game in 13 years. So that yearly vote total that changes does so for reasons that have zero to do with my performance between the lines.
The vote totals for every single player (all of whom have been retired for at least half a decade) on every single ballot change every single year. Does Schilling think that players not accused of "hate speech" receive 48.3% of the vote or 7.7% of the vote every single year until they drop off the ballot? And while Schilling's whining would lead you to believe his vote totals have been dropping with each passing year, his percentage has been increasing, towards induction.
Sorry, girls, he's married.
* * *
Schilling voted for Donald Trump in 2020.
Maybe Schilling didn't know all that much about him in 2016, but now he's been watching Trump for four years. If he was willing to sign on for four more years, then Trump's views are his views.
Which means Schilling's rah-rah US military talk is straight-up Grade-A horseshit. #FakeNews. Vladimir Putin has been paying members of the Taliban cash rewards for every American soldier they kill. Trump has known about this for almost two years (since early 2019) and has never publicly denounced the bounties and he's never brought the subject up with Putin.
Less than two months ago, a Trump campaign ad featured Russian fighter jets and weapons, stating "Support Our Troops". In 2018, Trump chose to believe Putin over US intelligence agencies regarding election tampering. Trump's deference and fealty to Putin has never waned. It's as strong as ever. Why would Schilling, who claims to support the troops, support a man who doesn't care if those troops have bounties on their heads? A man who won't say he disapproves of the bounties? A man who believes soldiers who have died in battle were "suckers" and "losers"? A man who stole five million masks meant for veterans hospitals during the pandemic?
Schilling's unwavering support of Trump also means his much-self-publicized Christian beliefs are more Grade-A horseshit. Trump separated immigrant children from their parents at the border; the youngest child taken was four months old. There was rampant child rape and sexual assault at the detention facilities. In four years, there were more than 4,500 allegations, with lawsuits alleging that guards assaulted detainees in blind spots not visible to security cameras. Trump wanted a moat filled with alligators and snakes alongside his border wall. He said he wanted the wall electrified, with spikes on top that could pierce human flesh. He wanted migrants shot if they threw rocks at US guards.
Trump has been accused of rape or sexual assault by 26 women. One of his victims wants to know if Trump's DNA matches residue on her clothes from that night. If Trump is innocent, as he claims, his DNA would prove it. Trump has refused to provide a sample. Five years ago, Trump promised he would sue every one of his accusers. He has done nothing. Trump was good friends with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and has been accused of raping several minors, including a 13-year-old girl. When Epstein's main sex trafficking accomplice was arrested this year, Trump wished her well during a White House press conference. Throughout the pandemic, Trump has shown a callous disregard for human life.
Why would Schilling, who claims to follow the teachings of Christ, support a man who believes in grabbing women "by the pussy"? Why would Schilling, in October 2016, defend Trump's sexually suggestive comments about a 10-year-old girl? Schilling admitted: "I've seen my daughter's friends [and thought] Wow, she's a beautiful young lady." Perhaps that's why Schilling supports a man who has repeatedly insinuated he's thought about having sex with one of his daughters, who he agreed in one interview was "a piece of ass"? Trump said his favorite thing he has in common with Ivanka is "sex". He said this, on television. When Ivanka was 13, Trump asked Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen: "Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?"
So . . .
Schilling claimed: "There isn't a SINGLE documented quote of "hate speech" in my existence." Excluding Muslim extremists, Nazis, and white supremacists, of course. (Strange that Donald Trump credibly fits into two of those categories.)
First, let's get a definition of "hate speech". The Cambridge Dictionary defines it as:
public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.
John T. Nockleby, writing in Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, stated that hate speech is:
usually thought to include communications of animosity or disparagement of an individual or a group on account of a group characteristic such as race, colour, national origin, sex, disability, religion, or sexual orientation.
Has Schilling said, written, or posted anything that "expresses hate" towards a person or a group or , "animosity or disparagement" of an individual or group based on national origin, sex, religion, etc.?
Spoiler Alert: Of course he fucking has!
The photo in his anti-transgender meme certainly expresses "disparagement" of transgender people.
In August 2015, Schilling tweeted one of his many comparisons of Islam to Nazism. "It's said that only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists. In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How'd that go?"
There are so many problems with this tweet. First, it's comparing a worldwide religion with one political party in one country. Max Fisher of Vox wrote (after pointing out that Islamophobia is rampant on cable news (and has been since 2001)):
Muslims are by far the number-one victims of extremist groups such as ISIS: They are the most likely to be killed by ISIS, and they are the most likely to actively fight ISIS. Nazi-era Germans, on the other hand, overwhelmingly supported and fought for the Nazi regime. So in fact the relationship between Nazi-era Germans and Nazi crimes is the exact opposite of the relationship between Muslims and ISIS.
What is an "extremist"? A person who believes strongly in something? It doesn't specify a good thing or a bad thing. In that sense, Schilling would describe himself as a Christian extremist", despite his love for a selfish, lying, thieving, deceptive, adulterous, vindictive, vengeful politician (who hates and mocks Christians, but admires the con-artist preachers!). (Also, how many "Christians" are violent, either in their homes or in public, in the United States alone?)
At the time of Schilling's tweet, PolitiFact stated there are 945 million Muslims in the world. The Bipartisan Policy Center's Homeland Security Project estimated there were about 100,000 armed jihadists on the planet in 2014. That's roughly 1/100 of 1% (.0001). Better double-lock your doors.
Schilling's claim of 7% of Germans being Nazis is also simplistic and wildly inaccurate. Counting only Germans who formally joined the Nazi party, membership in 1940 was 6.5 million, roughly 9% of an overall population of 70 million. When excluding children under age 15, the number rises to 12%. In Germany's 1932 election, the Nazis won with about 33% of the vote. Thomas Kuehne, a professor of history and director of Holocaust and genocide graduate studies at Clark University, sees the 33% in 1932 as a useful benchmark. "There is no reason to assume that this share decreased before, say, late 1944. The 7% figure is totally misleading."
So: 33% versus 1/100 of 1%. . . . Math is staggering.
Schilling defends flying the flag of the Confederate States of America, an enemy nation that supported slavery and fought a four-year war against the United States. I would say expressing your approval for a pro-slavery country is "hate speech" against Black Americans. Schilling shared a Facebook post stating the message of the CSA flag is: "We are united in our Christian fight for liberty." The people who fought under that flag 150 years ago did so in support of slavery, in a war against the United States. (Why would Schilling (who allegedly supports the US military) publicly support a country who fought against the US in war? Does he also defend the flying of the Japanese flag from state capitol buildings?)
In May 2017, Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles stated he has heard racist slurs at Fenway Park. Schilling (who had no connection to the story, but popped out of the bushes anyway) called Jones a liar for spreading "fake hate crimes":
If he wants to maintain the lie he made here, that's fine. No one denies racism exists, but when people like him lie about an incident and others just take him at his word, it perpetuates a mythical level of racism.
It's good that Schilling admitted racism exists, but how would he know whether Jones heard slurs? (Yet again, Schilling is claiming he can read other people's minds, something he claims that only idiot liberals do.) When Jones said Schilling "just wants an outlet" to talk and has "never been black" and played the outfield in Boston, Schilling doubled down:
For some reason, it appears blacks believe only blacks can talk about racism and only whites can be racists. . . . Adam has an agenda and one needs to only look at his past commentary on race and racism to see it. But see, when you question fake hate crimes in this day and age it somehow makes you a racist.
Sports Illustrated's Jon Thayer wrote that Schilling "knows nothing at all about anything important".
[Schilling stated] Jones had no right to be offended given the air-tight argument of "black people use the n-word all the time," including in rap songs.. . .
There are few people on this earth who are more ignorant about race than Curt Schilling, a woefully uneducated man trying his best to ignore actual, observed racism because it doesn't fit in with his idiotic and narrow worldview . . . Schilling is a man who sees the world as one constant attack on white men, the most privileged and protected group on the planet, and has made it his goal to keep intact the reality he wants, no matter what lunatic conspiracy theory he has to espouse to defend himself and whatever horrible position he currently stands for. . . .
Schilling can't fathom what Jones or other black Americans have gone through. He is too lazy ever to try to find out and too ignorant to accept it. All he knows is what he's lived, and in a world that has become increasingly and rightfully cognizant of the sensitivities and needs of women, people of color and people of different sexual orientations, what he lives now is a nightmare in which he can't just say whatever he wants at the risk of offending some "social justice warrior" or "PC liberal snowflake." The world long ago left Schilling behind, and all he can do is rage and blubber about how unfair that is. . . .
Curt Schilling is a racist idiot, full stop. He is one of the least qualified people in the country to talk about matters of race. His opinions on race, gender, society, and literally anything that is not the sport of baseball are thoughtless and should be ignored. He should not be amplified, only shouted down. His ideas should be exposed for the drivel that they are.
After a "brew ha ha" in June 2020, Schilling deleted his Twitter account. However, it is active now (and filled with nonsense about voter fraud and Trump's elite strike(out) force of lawyers), so he must have only taken it offline and restored it later when the heat died down. I guess Curt's colors do run! Why wouldn't he stay and defend his opinion?
All this and I never got around to mentioned Schilling defaulting on a $75 million loan (that Republican friends pushed through for him) and sticking in Rhode Island's taxpayers with the bill. I'll bet Curt hates welfare queens, too. (Oh, Schilling was also connected to Steve Bannon's border wall fraud case.)
In 2016, Greg Howard of the New York Times took a close look at Schilling's online presence.
Over the years, Schilling has used Facebook to curate a safe public community, where friends and like-minded followers can follow what he's up to, post well wishes and contribute to an ever-growing wall of hatred. Nestled between corny jokes, boasts of semi-successful dadding, videos of his dogs, photos of his chickens and evidence of his legitimately dope fish tank are the thoughts and paranoia of what I would describe as a racist, sexist, Islamophobic, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic conspiracy theorist who believes deeply in the Christian God and much less so in the humanity of people who are unlike him.
A few weeks ago, Schilling posted a Free Beacon article aggregating a Department of Homeland Security report that assessed the likelihood of someone hacking into the country’s electrical grid. That likelihood, the report found, is low, but still, Schilling wrote, "This is how WWIII is going to open." He has raved on his wall about microchips embedded in people's hands that allow them to open doors and pay for coffee, which he considers the Mark of the Beast predicted in the Book of Revelations over 2,000 years ago. He has surmised that President Obama is the Antichrist sent to destroy the United States. When posting a video foretelling Islam's destruction of the country, he wrote, "I would honestly say this is the most important 14 minutes of information I've heard in the last 15 years, by a mile." And, of course, there’s Benghazi.
Taking in the sum of what Schilling shares — all the links to Breitbart, Drudge, Fox News, Right Wing News and lesser-known Facebook groups, often peddling apocryphal or otherwise odious memes — is a jarring experience. But examined individually, none of Schilling's opinions qualify as particularly novel. In the current political climate, it's hard to even call them extreme. There's nothing surprising about Schilling reacting just as incredulously to the idea of police brutality as to the idea of climate change. You can probably guess that he believes in denying women the right to abortion but does support torture. These are the ordinary, everyday musings of a certain type of conservative, Christian, middle-aged, jingoistic white male — the type that, like Schilling, holds to a specific vision of America that is being rendered obsolete. He's a bigot, yes. But more than that, he seems scared.
Schilling is only 49, but his Facebook page drips with synthetic nostalgia for a time he has never known and figures was probably better than this one. . . .
When his fear of a changing America manifests in an ornery disdain for millennials' pathological laziness, unabashed admiration of Walmart's marketing ploys or public displays of affection for Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson and Donald Trump's kids, Schilling's retrograde beliefs are almost quaint: He's the clichéd right-wing uncle I've never known but my white friends all claim to have. More often, though, Schilling's fear is expressed in other, more hostile ways — like when he shares a video of an American soldier playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" on his electric guitar in an effort to drown out Muslim prayer services, or celebrates Sheriff Joe Arpaio's harsh treatment of prisoners in his tent-city prison in Maricopa County, Ariz. He sees humans rights and freedoms as extinguishable, transferable resources, reserved mainly for straight, white, middle-aged, Christian, conservative, American males — people like him. . . .
Schilling is an outspoken bigot, undoubtedly one of the worst acting as an outward face of a reputable company. But he's the same bigot ESPN hired 2010. He's the same bigot they merely suspended last year when he claimed there were as many as 160 million radical Muslims in the world and then compared them to Nazis. The meme that led to his termination wasn't even the first transphobic post he has shared on Facebook this week.
If Curt Schilling was confronted with any or all of these examples, I have no doubt he would have a bagful of excuses ready to go. But since his posts are always single-entendre, there's not much room for misconstruing his point of view.
Back in 2016, Schilling posted on his blog:
Let's make one thing clear right up front. If you get offended by ANYTHING in this post, that's your fault, all yours.
Speaking as only an entitled white American male can, Schilling reserves the right to be as dismissive, rude, and hateful as he wants and it's your fault if anything bothers you. Curt does not like the fact that he can be called out by someone — anyone — at any time. He truly pines "for a time he has never known and figures was probably better than this one", when a man was a man and did his business in a men's room, standing up, as God intended. When he could say whatever he wanted and no one dared stop him. But everything's gone to shit nowadays. The PC Police of Libtard City will "cancel" you if you don't act like a decent human being.
Curt Schilling was an essential part of 2004. That's a fact. . . . It's also a fact that Curt Schilling is a horrible human being.
Boston 1775
Market Design
the joy of sox
Keith's note: It is likely that this fix will require months since the PDU is not all that easy to reach and things would need to be removed that are not designed to be removed once installed. It is rather unlikely that NASA would allow this Orion spacecraft to fly with this issue since the unit and its redundancy exist to meet some rather basic requirements set by NASA. The current plan (which is always on wheels) calls for the first full-up SLS/Orion launch (Artemis-1) to happen in November 2021. Add in delays caused by weather and the pandemic with the Green Run engine testing of the core stage, and it is becoming rather improbable that this launch will happen at any time in 2021.
In most countries, what we are taught about our own nation in school does not correspond much to reality. And Norway is no exception. We are made to believe in myths surrounding our own nation and are given a perfect mirage of excellence and good intentions in our history lessons. Stories of abuse, greed and war are often swept under the carpet, and it seems that, by some twist of faith, we are born into the best country in the world, and that all other nations are beneath us. Is Norway really the most happy place, the most environmentally conscious, the most peace loving or the most ethical? Hardly!
Ben-Ghiat: I grew up in Pacific Palisades, Calif., which is an idyllic seaside town. It might seem a strange place to start thinking about fascism and pathologies, but it was a place where many anti-Nazis, Thomas Mann and others, came to settle. So I was always aware of this pain of exile, and perhaps being a child of immigrants and the closest family member an eleven-hour plane ride away, perhaps I was interested in what kinds of regimes force people to flee their country. So I started investigating individuals, Otto Klemperer or Schoenberg, who had had to resettle. Then my first book out of my dissertation was on Italian fascist culture, but it was really a study in intellectual and cultural collaboration, how did the regime pressure people, intimidate people to work with them.
In terms of the first question, I was already writing for CNN on war, and so I had that platform—and my second book was just published in 2015, a study of fascist film propaganda. From a slightly different angle, I was thinking about how people are led to believe a fictional reality and the destruction that it causes. So I turned this global lens onto my own country, and when I did that, coupled with my training in fascism, the figure of Donald Trump was very clear to me.
As you have well pointed out, dangerous leaders must maintain themselves in office at all cost. He is currently plunging the nation into tragedy and chaos because of his refusal to concede or to share intelligence and vaccination plans with the incoming administration. What might be our recourse, if any?
It is just something I felt I had to do. I was in a very privileged position. I am tenured and a full professor. Because plenty of people do not like what you write, and they try and get you fired, they write to your provost, they write to your chair. I think everyone has to do something, but this was what I could do, and I had all this training and a platform with CNN. I would hear from people who had themselves fled dictatorships to come and settle in America, and they said, “I am so glad you are writing, because no one else is getting this.” So this feedback from the public really spurred me on and told me that it was helping people. You get a lot of hate mail, you get threats, and I had to move my office to a more secure location in 2017. For a little while I had a guard, but it is just part of living through a culture where the model, the tone is being set by a brutal criminal. When criminals get into power and have been associated with organized crime, the culture is going to reflect that, and people feel legitimated to threaten and intimidate. But I have also been exposed to a whole community of people working to protect our democracy, and that has been absolutely wonderful.
