Speier: Disagreements led to pitching coach change

[Tony Pena's Gas Cloud]

It has nothing to do with politics. Many of the players and coaches in baseball are conservative. Schilling has chosen to be divisive and controversial to an extreme which makes him unemployable for companies that care about public image. He wasn't fired from ESPN for being a conservative.

If it has nothing to do with your politics, then why did you explicitly mention your distaste for his conservative views at length? If you feel players should keep politics out of baseball, great. Then say so with a neutral statement.

 

[Plympton91]

Yeah, if you can go 19-8 with a sub 3 ERA and 250 K’s then you can deal with his boorishness, but I can’t imagine a coach’s value added could be high enough to deal with all that baggage. Even abstracting from our dysfunctional political discourse, Schilling was a pretty mercurial teammate.

 

[nvalvo]

So if he espoused in public at length on the benefits of universal healthcare, raising taxes on big businesses, and joining pro-choice rallies he's be a "good guy" and a "good product" and therefore would be a good pitching coach? Solid logic there.

Uhh, yeah?

None of the political positions you listed deny the humanity of portions of the consumer base. Almost all ball players are conservatives politically; that’s fine. (It even makes sense, given the way the structure of their compensation intersects with the tax code.) It’s Schill’s publicly-avowed intolerance that crosses the line.

Baseball positions itself piously within a certain colorblind anti-racism. It’s timid to the point of anemia, but it’s part of the sport’s story about its place in American history. It is a huge part of the brand.

You can’t both observe Jackie Robinson Day *and* hire 2019 Curt Schilling.

But as the NBA is showing us, there is less and less safety for brands in terms of political positioning.

I hope this added more light than heat to the thread, but I won’t be offended if a mod feels otherwise.

 

[mauf]

I hope this added more light than heat to the thread, but I won’t be offended if a mod feels otherwise.

I think it added more light than heat. I also think it’s time to move on.