joe morgan versus howard cosell

on mike and mike this morning i heard an audio clip from curt schilling where he said that he doesn't care about getting into the hall of fame because he doesn't care what people who never played the game think about his career.

who gets into the hall of fame is determined by the baseball writers of america. i would say it's safe to assume that most, if not all of these writers have never played baseball, at least on the major league level. that being said, i wonder about schilling's comments. i feel as though this is a common sentiment in general about writers, although i doubt if players don't care about getting into the hall of fame or receiving any other accolades that writers can bestow upon them.

his comments bring up two sentiments i've heard over the years. the first one that comes to mind is joe morgan's comments about sabermetric geeks or statisticians and how easily he dismisses their kind, once alleging that billy beane himself ghostwrote moneyball. the basic point was that these people have never played the game and thus do not understand what truly makes a great ballplayer. this job should be left to scouts and those who have an intrinsic knowledge of the nuances of the sport.

well, although i don't completely disagree with this concept, i do think that it is overblown. are there things that statisticians can't or at least don't understand? i'm sure. but, as a counter-point i'm sure that there are things that they are not blinded by as well. for example, scouts or people who once played the game can easily be shaped by their own experiences which leads them to see other players with a bias towards their own positive and/or negative attributes. statisticians, on the other hand, use mostly neutral numbers to come to their conclusions, although these numbers may tell an incomplete story.

howard cosell, on the other hand, used to talk about the skills necessary to be a sports reporter, announcer, etc. he would say that being a former athlete does not necessarily give you the gift to be able to dissect the game or speak intelligently about it. his points are of a little different substance than schilling's or morgan's, but there is some comparisons that can be made. i think he was obviously speaking to some extent about journalistic skill and oratory skill. but, at the same time, he was making a point that being able to comment on something is vastly different than being able to do something.

disliking critics is commonplace. for the most part, they are there to tear down. and although i agree that those who do not enter the arena shouldn't blast those that do, it doesn't mean that they are wrong with their opinions when they do, especially when those opinions are based on something concrete (like baseball stats). you don't have to be picasso to appreciate his art nor do you have to be scorsese to say that ed wood films are terrible (yet hilarious at the same time).

schilling is saying that he doesn't care what the baseball writers say about him and that's cool. i don't think he should care. but underlying those comments is a concept that i firmly stand against. moreover, i wonder whether schilling would care more about the writers if his entrance into the hall were more guaranteed than it is (i would say he's borderline, closer to in than out). it's easy to dismiss other's opinions when your fearful that they are negative... and easy to accept them when they are receptive.