(Still Life with Grittiness): Part II

To sum up where we left off: Ahem, X 182.

Anywhere, where to next? Right, cheese fries...

'Never going to get it'

Schilling had an interesting career in that the Orioles and Astros both gave up on him. They saw him as too immature, too unwilling to do the work required to succeed in the big leagues.

Wow, that hurt. Shifting like that on your car will strip your gears. In Comp 101 they'll tell you it'll disorient your readers and make them grumpy. Unless you mean "You're never going to get it," to which I can only say, "yep, I'm lost. Thanks for checking on me, your helpless reader, adrift in a sea of meaningless blech."

And as for the O's and 'stros giving up on him, let's be honest: from '88 to '91, Schill stunk.

When the Orioles sent him back to the minor leagues in 1990, I said to manager Frank Robinson, "Maybe something will click, and he'll get it."

"That kid ain't never going to get it," Robinson said.

Dig it: I'm Richard Justice, omniscient forseer of the future. Maybe. I'm Miss Cleo like that (maybe). 'Cuz back in 1990 I said to big Frank "Maybe something will click." I also told him to sign Sam Horn, maybe, and to bet the farm on Tyson (maybe) knocking out Buster Douglas, too. It's been 19 years since Frank has spoken to me.

A lot of the people who knew Schilling best felt exactly the same way. He was a goofball, a funny guy, the life of the party, but he was never going to be more than that.

Schilling credited a tough-love talk with Roger Clemens with getting him straightened out. Whatever it was, something clicked in his fifth big league season.

OK---this is where I look back at the previous post and ask, "What the h@ll is that about again?" You're supposed to be building a case that says Schilling had a gutty career, a career so gutty he deserves to be put along side dudes like Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, and Bob Horner as one of the best players ever. What...? Bob Horner is not...Oh, never mind.

Well, a big tough love talk with Roger "The Rocker" Clemens...I guess that's gutty enough to get us back on track. Well...until...

From the 1992 season on, he was a rock, winning 20 games three times, pitching 200 innings nine times.

Well, sure...if you look at it that way. But is the argument now that innings eaters are HOFers? I mean, in '93 and '94 Schilling was kind of....average. Average as in ERA+ below 100, ERA over 4 both years, and I'm to believe that "From '92 on he was a rock"? Huh. And you cut out four of the worst years of his career (cherry picker) to reduce the sample size to 16 years in all.

Now, Act the third:

True grit

A lot of people will remember him for winning a World Series game with a foot that had been sewn together. That bloody sock made for great television.

Yep, I guess. Is this the part where we get to the game? Was this the game from the beginning, because I honestly have no idea. Let's hear it:

But there were dozens and dozens of other nights when Schilling got by with is grit and determination.

OK---I'm now to believe that there were DOZENS of nights where Schilling went to the mound with nothing but chaw, the 45 hotdogs in his belly, and "grit"? When Kmart pulls this kind of bait and switch they get sued. Do you just not care to build a coherent narrative to support Schill's HOF credentials, or did you just decide that, having written 182 words, you were in to deep and just had to soldier on out the other side? For God's sake, at least plead laziness....

Sure, he talked too much at times and annoyed some teammates and all of that. The bottom line was that when it was time to put up or shut up, Schilling put up.

I'll take that as an admission of guilt, same as when those Wall St. guys get up on the stand and plead the 5th. When they've written themselves into a corner dudes like you [insert cliché here]. Pretty smooth, yes?

I drove halfway across Florida one spring to ask him if he remembered a game that I never forgot.

No way!!! Halfway across FLA, one of the skinniest state in the country? You say that like it's Texas or something. And it's to ask him about a game you never forgot? I mean...I thought...we...us...the fans would never forget...but you're right, I'm an idiot with a blog about sweet, delicious cheese fries. What the h@ll sport are we talking about again?

It was July 3, 2001. Pitching for the Diamondbacks, he allowed the Astros five runs in the first two innings at Enron Field and probably was one pitch away from being knocked out at least four different times.

This is in an article advocating Schilling for the Hall? Heavens to Mergatroid, friend, I thought that a pitcher's job was not to give up runs to the opposing team. Just shows what jerk I am. Glad you cleared that up. By all means, dude can give up 5 in 2 innings to the 'stros, that man needs to be in the Hall.

He had nothing. Yet he stayed out there, kept moving his fastball around, changing speeds and seeing if his competitive fires could overcome his lack of stuff.

On a night when a lot of guys would have taken an early shower, Schilling survived seven innings, allowed six runs, threw 115 pitches and showed how the great ones react to adversity.

It was "competitive fires" that "overcame his lack of stuff"? It wasn't that he settled in, made the proper adjustments, perhaps talked things over with his catcher in the dugout between innings? Nope: Schilling just kept moving the 'ole fastball around, changed speeds a few times, and let the "competitive fires" work their magic. And I love that it's "kept" moving the fastball around, as in "he was already moving it around but getting whacked." Makes. No. Sense.

And let me get this right: "taking one for the team" now qualifies as "showing how the great ones react to adversity"? Bob Gibson just spit his Metamusil all over his breakfast table, man. I guess this guy thought "You know, I have a keen sense of irony, so I'm gonna take some heat off of these other folks with this really great sign here. That's how the great intellectuals handle adversity."

He dug himself a 5-0 hole, but his Arizona teammates rallied to tie it. Then he made one too many mistakes, and Julio Lugo's home run won the game 6-5.

Wah?!?! So he still gave up the ghost in that game? To Julio Lugo, no less. He of the 80 lifetime HRs. Are you deranged? At what point do you, well, get to the point?

I'd known him since he arrived in the big leagues in 1988 and have seen him pitch a long list of more important games. Yet that one stands out because it spoke volumes about Schilling's heart.

Oh, it's a love story. That's cool. But you gotta come clean: does Schilling return those googley-eyed text messages you send him? Schilling's got heart, which is unquantifiable and has nothing to do with anything. The "long list of more important games" is just as irrelevant. Lots of guys pitch lots of important games. Just ask Don Larsen.

"The bottom line for me is that's a game we could have won," he said. "I had a bad start, but I gave my team seven innings. We lost a one-run game. You finish a game like that and you're tired and beat up. But you competed. That's what it's all about. To me the best 30 minutes are after a game you've won. You're in the locker room with your teammates and you feel good knowing you've done your job."

But did Schilling remember the game as well? You don't say. It's just three+ solid lines of athlete speak, which is fine, but disturbingly enough makes more sense from start to finish than anything we've seen thus far. Are you sure that this quote isn't from Richard Justice and that Curt Schilling write the rest of this? I mean, it's terrifying this man's job is having informed opinions on sports. We have sports, we have opinions, and...anecdotes?

The turning point

Please, Jesus, I do hope so. That'll be part III.

(Still Life with Grittiness): Richard Justice, Plums, and Curt Schilling

I recently got myself into trouble over at Core Contrarian, in a post he did about Cecil Cooper's firing. Seems he read about the firing in an article by Richard Justice. This article opens with the line:

Cecil Cooper deserved to be fired. To argue otherwise is to refuse to deal in reality.

Coming from the man whom penned this mind bender justifying Curt Schilling's HOF induction, I'm not sure I want in on that reality, or that there are enough pyschotropics in Timothy Leary's medicine cabinet to bring me to the kind of enlightenment Justice possesses. Setting aside the Cooper firing, let's check out Justice's "reality," a place where grittiness is worth 78 wins, IP is a noteworthy statistical category regardless of quality, and all you have to do to merit a HOF vote is play hurt. (Apologies to FJM)

Schilling guts out a Hall of Fame-worthy career

Ummm....we're already off to a bad start. Did Curt Schilling play with one eye, like this guy? Or have one leg blown apart in WWII, only to come back and play ball at a high enough level to be an AS, like this guy? Because when I think of guys who "gutted out" careers, I think of those guys. OK, so now you have my interest: how did Schilling "gut out" a 20 year career while these other gentlemen only lasted a few years? That Schilling must be pretty damn gutty....

Curt Schilling said he'll remember the night forever. So will his teammates and a lot of the people who were in the ballpark or watching on television.

His body was battered, his arm dead. He was out there only because he thought he was supposed to be, only because he was too stubborn to admit he couldn't get the job done.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, but I see nothing heroically gutty about this so far, and certainly nothing even pointing in the direction of an argument supporting Schilling for the HOF. What I do see is that "television" leads to a stupid Bret Favre add. F@ck the heck?

And what is this about Schilling only being out there "because he was too stubborn to admit he couldn't get the job done"? Apparently his manger thinks Schilling and his battered, dead arm (was he hit by a batted ball earlier or is this a "gritty war wound?) can get the job done, or else Schilling wouldn't be in the game! He's not out there "because he thought he was supposed to be," but because his manager set up something called a "pitching rotation" weeks earlier during a time called "spring training," and this game is obviously Schilling's "spot" in the "rotation." This has nothing to do with "stubbornness and everything to do with does the manager think Schilling should be out there? Answer: well, since he's out there, YES!

Years from now when he takes his World Series rings and playoff appearances and all the rest to the Hall of Fame, this single game will remain one all baseball fans will remember.

"Those are the games that define players," he told me a couple of springs ago. "Those are the games you take with you after you've retired. When you go out there with your 'A' stuff and you shut somebody out, that's nothing special. Anybody can do that. It's what you do those nights when everything goes wrong that are special."

"this single game..." which is link to more Bret Favre creepiness and the underage girls who've sold there sold their souls to the AXE body spray people. Are you referring to the "game" of the capitalist pigs who currently run the planet or an actual baseball game that is used as a way to pacify the desires of the proletariate?

And "all baseball fans will remember it forever"? Not being a baseball fan who runs a stupid blog about baseball cards and most of all the Devil Rays (oops) and Carl Crawford, I have NO IDEA what game you are referring to. It's obviously so super special readers of the Sporting News "get it," while morons like myself, on the outside of everything, just don't. :( I mean, "those games define players," but I have no clue what those games are, so I guess I'll never be able to tell the difference between Babe Ruth and Bob Horner. I do remember, though, the Horner once homered 4 times in one game, which I guess is a "defining game" and the best a hitter can do, so guess he's a TON better than that Ruth guy, by definition.

And Schilling, as for shutouts with your 'A' stuff being so easy, am I to infer that, over the course of a 20 year career, you brought your 'A' game to the park 20 times!?! Must be nice to have that kind of job.

Schilling announced his retirement Monday morning after 20 years and 216 career victories. He was a six-time All-Star and finished second in Cy Young Award voting three times.

Now, in case you're wondering, so ends the first section of this train wreck and with it the first act of our little drama here. I'll pick it up tomorrow, as my job requires my to be on, well, pretty much ALL THE TIME. But there are several things to notice: for an article that begins with a headline about "guts" and a "HOF" career, so far we've been given 182 words of nonsensical throat clearing. Kids I've seen edit each others' work in Comp classes would look at something like this and start sharpening their knives.

Guts? All we've been told about is some game where Schilling showed up without his 'A' game (drunk, hungover, troubled by global warming or the erosion of or civil rights under the Bush administration, who knows?) but nonetheless went up to his manger before the anthem right before game time and said "I'm taking the ball today, skip, and I'm not taking 'no' for an answer." To which the manager replied, "Sure, what the hell do I care? I'd rather be hustling pool, anyway," and handed him the ball.

Career? Sounds like he's a bit short of other dudes on the career numbers there. 216 wins in 20 years? Why, that's good enough for 77th on the All-Time list. If I were you I might downplay those numbers a bit, especially since guys like Charlie Hough and Wilbur Cooper also have 216 wins. Unless, of course, this argument will also state a case to include those guys in the HOF. Oh, you plan on downplaying the career numbers? But...the headline says Schilling had a HOF career, and a gutty one at that. Guts are good for 50+ wins? Guess we'll see, but I say Wilbur Cooper for the Hall in 2010.

And game? What game? We're 182 words in and the links only go to Brett Favre ads. I mean, what did your people who read the print version of the Chronicle do with this other than line their bird cages? Oh, I forgot. "No baseball fan can forget, THE GAME," and as a complete imbecile who doesn't follow (what the heck sport is this blog about again?) I have no idea what you're talking about.

In conclusion, cheese fries are good, and Schilling is obviously a shoo-in for the Rock'n'Roll HOF. I mean, his tour with the Stones back in the early '70's was legendary, who could ever forget that?

(Part II tomorrow)