Wednesday, MSNBC contributor Mike Barnicle reacted to former Major League Baseball star pitcher Curt Schilling not being elected to the league’s Hall of Fame along with controversial players such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens.
While Bonds, Clemens and others have been held out of the Hall of Fame over performance-enhancing drugs, Schilling has drawn ire in recent years for voicing his conservative opinion.
Barnicle, on “Morning Joe,” acknowledged Schilling is deserving of being in the Hall of Fame for his on-field performance, but said he would not vote him in due to his “character issue.” He added he believes Bonds, the all-time home run leader, should be inducted into the Hall of Fame but with a note on his plaque in Cooperstown about his involvement with steroids.
“[I]s Curt Schilling a Hall of Famer? Yeah, probably is. I think I’d vote for him in the Hall of Fame, except for I wouldn’t vote for him because of the character issue that you just eluded to,” Barnicle stated. “That gets us to the second point of the question. You can go to Cooperstown — I’ve been there many, many times — and walk-through the hall and look through certain plaques of a certain era. And there were gangsters, there were racists, there were wife beaters; there were all sorts of dreadful people but tremendous baseball players. They, under these guidelines, these new character issues that I think are legitimate to talk about, would not certainly be in the Hall of Fame today.
He continued, “So, it’s an interesting question. The Clemens and Bonds issue, if I were voting, if I had a vote, I would vote for them to be in the Hall of Fame. but I would also insist what they are alleged to have done and did do would be on the plaque so that people going to Cooperstown looking at it could understand the era they were a part of.”
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