Marty Walsh Thinks Curt Schilling, Roger Clemens Should Be in the Hall of Fame

Photo via Mayor’s Office/Isabel Leon

Mayor Marty Walsh may not agree with Curt Schilling politically, but the lifelong Red Sox fans believes No. 34 deserves to be enshrined in Cooperstown.

Speaking to reporters Friday, Walsh disagreed with Schilling’s notion that his political views will ultimately keep him out of the Baseball Hall of Fame, thanks to the so-called “character clause.”

“I doubt baseball writers are worried about political feelings of different people. I mean you heard some of the folks in the Hall of Fame have colorful pasts and have said some crazy things on and off the field. Back in the heyday of the baseball—in the ’30s, ’40s, ’50s—some of those Yankees teams said some crazy things, and some of those folks are in the Hall of Fame,” Walsh said. “So it shouldn’t play anything into the Hall of Fame.”

In a recent interview with TMZ, Schilling said that if he had tweeted “Lynch Trump” instead of a photo of a shirt that joked about lynching journalists, “I’d be getting in with about 90 percent of the vote this year.”

“The people who said they’re not going to vote for me are not going to vote for me because of the character clause. There are some of the worst human beings I’ve ever known voting,” he said.

Schilling, now an internet radio personality for the alt-right site Breitbart, was fired from ESPN last year following controversial social media posts about Muslims and transgender people. He has since shown interest in challenging Elizabeth Warren for her Senate seat in 2018. When asked about Schilling’s political ambitions in August, Walsh quipped: “I’m sure that the video game scandal that he had in Rhode Island will never come up.”

“I think now we need Senator Warren in the Senate more than ever,” Walsh said Friday. And if he had his way, Roger Clemens—another former Red Sox great who jumped ship for the Yankees—would make it into the Hall, too.