I'm not sure about this Schilling clause, but I know darn well there is no such thing as a sanity clause.

Thanks, Chico!

who ever introduced Curt Schilling to blogging, should have their children taken away.

Take it easy, Curt. Why don't you sit this next one out, stop talking for a while.

This entry is really hard to follow. There are three different fonts and some red used as well, and the quotation marks don't line up and the writers aren't identified. There is a bit near the end that is actually fairly sane, which I assume is Curt himself, though who knows. This is one case where RTFA only makes the whole thing harder to understand.

You're not really a blogger until you post a dead-of-night, rambling drunk entry. Welcome to the party, pal!

If I had to sum it up, he's saying:

1. The BBWAA is changing rules on award voting based on MLB incentive compensation, such that the only players to be eligible for awards are those who are not being given financial incentive to compete for them. IOW, the criteria for winning an award will be, in descending order of importance:

a. Will the player explicitly make more money based on our vote?
b. How did the player perform during the season?

2. The stated rationale is that they want to remove any appearance of impropriety in the voting process.

3. There's so much impropriety in the voting process already, and this does nothing to correct it.

- - - -
If that's an accurate summary, he's correct on all counts.

If anything, the move by the BBWAA to disqualify players from awards based on explicit financial incentives in their contracts is a signal that their membership cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Players and teams are using the BBWAA awards as a good measure of player performance, and the BBWAA is pretty much saying, "No, they're not, stop using our awards that way." They're worried that someone might vote for Schilling only to allow him to collect $1 million; how shallow do they think their membership is? Apparently, they agree with many of us on that point.

There's so much impropriety in the voting process already, and this does nothing to correct it.

True. One example is that voters for gold gloves should not be allowed to vote for a guy who played 1/10 of his teams games at the position. The Palmeiro rule. Of course that's coaches not sportswriters.

Curt's too close to the issue to see it this way, but this decision by BBWAA is totally appropriate. No, it doesn't solve all the problems, but it prevents a foreseeable problem from occurring. Schiling said something about buying a car for a sportswriter when he signed his contract. Curt, if you read this I have no doubt you were just kidding. But they are right to remove possibility of impropriety in future votes, at least on this issue.

Its an easy issue to correct, they are right to do so. Other types of impropriety are tougher to correct. Doesn't mean they don't exist, but there's no good way of stopping a writer from voting against a player just because he doesn't like him, which cost Albert Belle the 1995 MVP award.

If anything, the move by the BBWAA to disqualify players from awards based on explicit financial incentives in their contracts is a signal that their membership cannot be trusted to do the right thing. Players and teams are using the BBWAA awards as a good measure of player performance, and the BBWAA is pretty much saying, "No, they're not, stop using our awards that way." They're worried that someone might vote for Schilling only to allow him to collect $1 million; how shallow do they think their membership is? Apparently, they agree with many of us on that point.

I don't think so. It has more to do with the appearance than the actuality. If Schilling were to receive one Cy Young vote next year, fans who already have low opinions of sportswriters (I think there are a few here) will openly wonder/speculate why? Was he doing it to curry favor with Curt, or worse, was there some kind of payoff. Even if the vote was entirely merit-based (in the writer's view), there will be no way for that writer (and Schilling) to frame the argument that will convince every fan/reader. The BBWAA's decision removes that potential for conflict, and I'm certain their publishers support that stand. I don't think Schilling and Theo thought of the ramifications from the BBWAA's perspective when they inserted the clause, but if Curt does receive one Cy vote next year, he surely will.

Mailer wrote his masterpiece on his first try. Afterwards, he was never edited and wrote rambling sentences that contained interesting ideas. His work suffered as a result, although there were a few great books in the span of his 50 year career. Still, his editors should been more heavy-handed.

Now, did I miss Schilling's Naked and the Dead? Why are his editors so hands-off? The man is a Strunk and White study away from a decent blog. Why must he write so many words. They make my head spin.

I think the BBWAA did this because they want to still be able to vote on the awards in the future. Remember Posnanski's main point -- he thinks that the newspapers that employ the writers won't let them vote anymore because of clauses like Schilling's.

I enjoyed Schilling's rant -- hey, who doesn't enjoy reading a good rant? -- but I agree that it wasn't his most coherent effort. But that's the thing about blogs -- sometimes posts aren't particularly well-constructed. I'm still glad he wrote it, and I like reading his stuff.