Griffey had been brought back to Seattle last year as a veteran presence and stuck around for one final season this year as the Mariners made several aggressive moves in the offseason aimed at contending for a championship. But the Mariners got out of the gates slowly and one report indicated that he was going to retire or be released sometime last month.

He finishes 2010 with a .184 batting average and no homeruns. But he finishes his 22 year career with 630 homers and a .284 average to go along with the above-mentioned accolades. Throughout the 1990s he was regarded as one of the best – if not the best – players in the game, though his stats would undoubtedly have been even better if he had not spent most of 2002-2004 on the disabled list.

Griffey also was regarded as a truly decent guy. In one of the few controversies to arise during his career, two unnamed players told the Tacoma News Tribune that Griffey missed an opportunity to pinch hit earlier this year when he fell asleep in the clubhouse. His teammates defended him aggressively, locking out the reporter who broke that story for at least awhile.

The linked Seattle Mariners press release includes several Mariners officials giving him his well-deserved due. There’s little to no question in my mind that he will be a first-ballot Hall of Fame selection in five years. He was untainted by the steroid allegations that have hampered his peers such as Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire. And even with the injuries his numbers clearly put him among the all-time greats.

A discussion on one of the local sports radio talk shows raises a more interesting question: Is Griffey the best professional athlete to never win a championship? Karl Malone in the NBA, Dan Marino in the NFL and Bonds, among others, are under discussion as his competition from the other major sports.

But Griffey has to be right up there toward the top. Your thoughts?

There’s a lot about Schilling that I don’t really care for. The guy loves to hear himself speak. And speak. And speak. And speak. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be the center of attention, trust me, but this guy takes self-importance to another level.

The best example, of course (and one I’ve referenced before), is St. Patrick’s Day 2005, when Congress called a rogues gallery of (alleged) steroid using ballplayers to testify before them. Schilling was not subpoenaed, but that was a spotlight he couldn’t miss, so he invited himself along.

I have great respect for candor, but quite often Schilling would give his opinions to the press at the expense of his teammates. His first week at Red Sox spring training, he made a point of lecturing Manny Ramirez about dependability right in front of a couple Red Sox beat writers.

My overwhelming memory of Schilling in the ’93 playoffs is him writhing in agony – perfectly positioned in front of the CBS dugout camera – as he watched Mitch “Wild Thing” Williams struggle through another ugly but successful save. Yeah, we all wondered if this was going to be the night that Mitch would blow it for the Phillies, and truth be told he eventually did, but Schilling showed himself to be the greatest drama queen since Jerry Tarkanian, covering his head with a towel, biting his finger nails, and staring daggers at the mound every time Williams went to a three ball count.

It’s not that he was a diva, or that the things he said weren’t true. Or that they weren’t necessary. You just got the feeling that he thought of himself as Baseball’s B.S. police and its moral compass. Please. You aren’t the pope. You’re a pitcher.

But, man, what a great pitcher he was.

So, I have to take real exception to Andy’s assertion that he’s not a Hall Of Famer. It seems that the arguments against him are this – 216 wins, no Cy Young awards, and his numbers aren’t as good as Bert Blyleven’s.

Let’s work backwards on these arguments. No, his numbers aren’t as good as Bert’s. Fewer wins, fewer strikeouts and nowhere close on complete games and shutouts.

So?

Keeping Bert Blyleven out of the Hall of Fame is an absolute, flat out abject travesty. Schilling’s numbers and credentials only serve to support the argument that Bert should go in right now and receive a letter of apology from every baseball writer who once voted against him only to change his mind a year or two later.

Schilling never won a Cy Young, but he finished second three times, in 2001, 2002, and 2004. As Jayson Stark pointed out last week, any of those three seasons would have won him the award had it not been for Randy Johnson and Johan Santana pitching out of their minds.

Here are the stats comparisons from those three years, according to Baseball-Reference.com:

2001:
Randy Johnson – 21-6, 2.49 era, 372 K’s (third highest total since 1886), 249.7 IP
Schilling – 22-6, 2.98 era, 293 K’s, 256.7 IP

2002:
Randy Johnson – 24-5, 2.32 era, 334 K’s, 260.0 IP
Schilling – 23-7, 3.23 era, 316 K’s, 259.3 IP

2004:
Johan Santana – 20-6, 2.61 era, 265 K’s, 228 IP
Schilling – 21-6, 3.26 era, 203 K’s, 226.3 IP

(Author’s Note: Thank God for Baseball-Reference.com. Next to Brushback, it’s the greatest baseball site on the web. Go check out their redesign, which is in Beta right now. It’s fantastic.)

That 316 strikeout season in ’02 is his second highest total. He had 319 strikeouts in 1997, and just for good measure, he had 300 in 1998. Every other pitcher since 1900 with multiple 300 strikeout seasons is in the Hall (except for Johnson and Pedro, who we can assume are first ballot guys).

Yes, his win total is low. But 216 wins is more than Hall of Famers Bob Lemon and Don Drysdale. Also, like Blyleven, he is the victim of playing on some pretty bad teams. From 1994-1999, he played for Phillies teams that had win totals of 54, 69, 67, 68, 75 and 77, and never ranked higher than 8th in the national League in runs scored, and usually was last or second-to-last.

So, please, keep some of those numbers in perspective. And then go look at his postseason numbers, which are absolutely ridiculous.

And then remember that even if he faked the bloody sock in 2004 (which he didn’t, but just to play along), he still had a loose tendon in his ankle stitched to his bone. Twice.
And if he was just an OK regular season pitcher, then how is it he was a six time all star?
And finally keep in mind that, say what you will about the guy, he brought more personality and intrigue to the game than 98 percent of the players of his time. I’ll take a mildly annoying media hog like Curt Schilling over a polished, respectful and kind of boring guy like Derek Jeter any day of the week.

Don’t mention his name in the same sentence as Kenny Rogers. Or David Wells. And don’t try to tell me that Curt Schilling wasn’t one of the ten best pitchers of his day. Put him in the Hall.

Right after Bert.

All week he’s been hailed as a gritty leader and a big-game pitcher and that is evident in his 11-2 postseason record and the game he is most known for – willing the Boston Red Sox to a championship in 2004 through his bloody ankle injury. There’s also been a tremendous amount of debate about his worthiness as a candidate for the Hall of Fame.

Really?

I have great respect for Schilling. He’s outspoken and opinionated, but he keeps himself out of trouble and as the old cliche goes, when the bell rings he answers it. But his numbers don’t scream Hall of Fame. His 217 wins are 70 behind Bert Blyleven, another gamer who has been inexplicably denied entry to the Hall for several seasons now.

He also is behind guys like Jack Morris, Greg Maddux and Mike Mussina among guys that are retired (and Roidger Clemens, depending on whether he is offiically retired or not) and Tom Glavine and Randy Johnson among active players. Kenny Rogers – yes, Kenny Rogers – had more wins than Schilling. So did David Wells. Are Rogers and Wells mentioned as potential Hall of Famers? I don’t hear their names very often. John Smoltz only has 210 wins but he adds four years of dominance as a closer on his resume.

Don’t like wins? How about strikeouts? This is his best category. But Blyleven, Johnson, Clemens, Maddux, and Pedro Martinez are all guys who rank higher than Schilling. Shutouts? Complete games? Schilling doesn’t rank in the top 50 all-time in either category.

Schilling did have some dominant seasons. He won 21 or more games three times. But he also had a half-dozen seasons (discounting his first four, when he wasn’t a full-time major leaguer) where he didn’t even reach double-digit wins. But while he came close, he never won a Cy Young award. He was often among the best,  but he was never recognized as THE best pitcher of his era.

And that is what the Hall of Fame is supposed to be about – recognizing the elite of the elite.

Now, some will argue that comparing Schilling to guys like Blyleven and Morris isn’t valid because they played during different eras. That’s a semi-legitimate point. Starters are only asked to go six or seven innings now where they tried to complete what they started through the 70s and 80s. To me that strengthens the argument for Blyleven’s inclusion in the Hall but it doesn’t do that much to Schilling’s.

Now, is there a possibility Schilling does get in someday? Sure. People will point at his postseason performances and deem him worthy. And maybe he deserves it – maybe I’m all wet.

Again, I mostly like Schilling. The outspokenness doesn’t bother me as long as he produces and he stays out of trouble, and Schilling, by and large, did both. But if he gets while guys like Blyleven and Morris, who was the ultimate postseason pitcher and threw one of the best games in World Series history in Game 7 of the 1991 World Series for the Minnesota Twins, are still sitting on the outside looking in then there’s something wrong with how these guys are selected.