After seeing the clause in Curt Schilling’s contract that if he got a vote in the Cy Young voting, the BBWAA (Baseball Writers’ Association of America) has passed a new rule, the “Schilling Rule”, stating that players with those type of bonus clauses within their contracts will be banned from receiving awards.
The rule will start up in 2013 giving agents and players time to adjust their contracts for the future. There isn’t that many players under contract for 2013 right now so it won’t be that big of a deal.
“When we first started giving out these awards it was just to honor somebody. You got a trophy, there was no monetary reward that went with it,” BBWAA secretary-treasurer Jack O’Connell said. “I honestly don’t think people vote with that in mind. But the attachment of a bonus to these awards creates a perception that we’re trying to make these guys rich.”
As you would expect, Schilling has already responded to the new rule over on his blog, 38 Pitches.
Give me a break. Don’t get me wrong, 100k, 500k, 1 million dollars is a huge sum of money. But to think that these guys ever approached this as anything other than them being touted as the ‘experts’ on who wins what is crap. Add to that I seriously doubt anyone ever looked at this from a perception standpoint and thought wow, they are making this guy rich. I would disagree.
The only step that hasn’t happened yet is to stop them from voting on awards altogether. They shouldn’t do it. Anytime someone is allowed to vote on this, on the Hall of Fame ballot, and that person injects personal bias into their vote, they should lose the privilege.
I have to agree with him that sometimes, the voters do let personal things influence their decisions. Imagine if CHB had a vote in the Hall of Fame voting when Schilling’s name comes up on the ballot. We all know that CHB wouldn’t vote for him.
