Curt Schilling is wrong, sports media hasn’t turned against the right wing
There’s a belief, shared among almost everyone who is either devoted or crazy enough to keep close watch on the world of sports media, that Curt Schilling has been courting political controversy throughout his years as an MLB analyst and network talking head.
This belief is, in fact, false.
Schilling was courting political controversy long before he became an analyst.
In 2004, Schilling, fresh off an eventful, platelet-rich postseason, was, for a moment, the biggest star in all of American sports, having played an undeniably critical role in winning the Boston Red Sox their first World Series in nearly a century. The morning after the biggest celebration in Beantown history, Schilling used the final moments of his appearance on “Good Morning America” to deliver a message.
“Make sure you tell everybody to vote,” Schilling told host Charles Gibson, “And vote Bush next week.”
Just days before the election, Schilling’s endorsement was rather tame, as these things go. And chances are he was far from the only player on that Red Sox roster who supported George W. Bush’s re-election bid. Nevertheless, the pitcher expressed a degree of regret in the days following, telling a team fan site, BostonDirtDogs.com, “While I hope to see (Bush) re-elected, it’s not my place, nor the time, for me to offer up my political opinions unsolicited.” Regardless, the Bush campaign was happy to capitalize on Schilling’s backing, even inviting the injured pitcher, walking boot and all, to introduce Bush at campaign rallies in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
“I’m proud to be on a team with a more important mission,” explained Schilling, “The team that’s going to get George Bush re-elected.”
Partisan? Undoubtedly. But compared to some of his more recent political outbursts, this was positively genteel.
Schilling has been a frequent topic of conversation recently, following his dismissal from his analyst role at ESPN back on April 20. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should mention that I worked in production at ESPN from the fall of 2006 to the spring of 2013.) Schilling’s time at the network came to a close as a result of an offensive Facebook post, in which he responded to the controversy surrounding North Carolina’s House Bill 2 with a deeply insensitive anti-trans image. “ESPN is an inclusive company,” the network said in its statement on the dismissal, “Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated.
That word, “inclusive,” has been a major part of ESPN’s ongoing response to the incident. At the network’s upfront presentation in New York City, president John Skipper was asked about the decision. “We have no tolerance for points of view that aren’t inclusive,” Skipper explained, “We have a diverse culture. We are very focused on making sure everybody can exist comfortably and succeed in that culture. That’s what we have no tolerance for and I don’t care of what the politics of a person who has such an attitude are.”
Schilling, it’s fair to say, sees things a little differently. In a personal blog entry made in the wake of the controversy, he blamed those who called attention to his post in the first place. “You frauds out there ranting and screaming about my ‘opinions’ (even if it isn’t) and comments,” Schilling wrote, “are screaming for ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance’ while you refuse to do and be either.”
In interviews conducted following his dismissal, Schilling argued that his critics, and former employers, were the ones displaying true intolerance. “It was apparent to me early on,” said Schilling in a guest appearance on ‘Breitbart News Patriots Forum’, “that if you wanted to go off topic as a sports person you had to go off topic left, or you were going to get in trouble… The memo that was sent out more than once was about they wanted on air-talent to focus on sports. To me that means focus on sports unless you want to talk about something that is part of the liberal agenda.”
Schilling’s comments, which he reiterated in interviews with WEEI and Dan Patrick, have helped to shape a growing (but inherently flawed) notion that ESPN, and the sports media as a whole, has taken on an anti-conservative bias. The business, so the story goes, has become wholly dominated by “liberal groupthink,” is concerned only with catering to “social justice warriors,” and is too “politically correct” to welcome opposing points of view.
It’s nonsense, of course. But it makes for a heck of a talking point.
The reality is that this was far from the first time Schilling found himself in hot water during his time in Bristol. And, as in the past, the issue wasn’t about “conservative values,” but good-old-fashioned, narrow-minded idiocy. From his anti-Darwinist tweetstorm, to his free association meme comparing Muslims to Nazis, to his declaration that “ISIS” was the winner of a Democratic Debate, Schilling has rarely missed an opportunity, not simply to espouse extreme right-wing viewpoints, but to betray a complete lack of scientific understanding, embrace statistics invented out of whole cloth, and abandon all reason in the name of demonizing the left-wing.
And even though Schilling saw his share of discipline, from public reprimands to high-profile suspensions, still his job remained, right up until the point his social media madness crossed the Rubicon to a new level of toxicity. Equating transgender individuals with predators in disguise is the height of heinousness; the image in question would be almost comically preposterous were it not for the very real threat of violence against the trans community.
The notion that ESPN, or any large sporting concern, for that matter, would go out of its way to pick a side in the nation’s ongoing culture war, is absurd. Such institutions are about business, above all else, and want nothing more than to keep the conversation on Clayton Kershaw’s fastball, Kevin Durant’s free-agency and the latest Deflategate appeal. (Of course, given that Tom Brady’s next step might be an appeal to the currently short-handed Supreme Court, it seems politics will find a way to enter the conversation one way or another.)
Big companies, particularly the ones that deal with all sorts of Americans, from coast to coast, will choose political agnosticism every time, if given the opportunity. That’s why there’s no danger of seeing sports media purged of those who believe in ending Obamacare, privatizing education or lowering corporate taxes. But what Schilling, and those sympathetic to him, fail to realize, is that at a certain point they leave these institutions no choice.
After all, the very same House Bill 2, the ill-conceived, poorly implemented, plainly discriminatory law that was at the heart of this entire imbroglio, was itself quickly denounced by a massive list of major American corporations, including Apple, Pfizer, Bank of America, Facebook, American Airlines, Marriott, and Levi Strauss, to name a few. (A full accounting of all who have taken public stands against the law is available here.) In early April, online commerce giant PayPal announced they were canceling plans to open a new center in North Carolina, a move which cost the state 400 potential jobs. Governor Pat McCrory has most certainly felt the pressure, not simply from the business community, but also from the Federal Government, with the U.S. Department of Justice contending that the law violates the Civil Rights Act
The lesson, for McCrory, for Schilling, for anyone who’s actually willing to listen, is that right-wing politics are one thing, but out-and-out bigotry is something else entirely, and simply can not be tolerated by a diverse and pluralistic society. The problem is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to determine where conservatism ends and prejudice begins.
Because while Schilling may decry the “bias” of ESPN, in actuality, months before Schilling’s tenure at the Worldwide Leader came to an end, this most surreal of campaign seasons was already forcing ESPN to take action. In July of last year, the network announced it was moving the upcoming ESPY Celebrity Golf Classic away from Trump National Golf Club, as a result of then-candidate Trump’s vile and baseless claim that Mexican immigrants were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.”
“We decided it was appropriate to change the venue,” read ESPN’s statement on the decision, “Diversity and inclusion are core values at ESPN and our decision also supports that commitment.”
It felt like the right decision at the time, and continues to do so, even as Donald Trump has attracted more support, consolidated more political power, and staged the sort of hostile takeover of the Republican Party few thought possible. Trump’s brand of hate, whether directed at Mexicans, Muslims, women or whichever group is next in his long line of to-be-determined targets, is simply not worthy of respect, not by any business, media outlet, or individual who considers themselves reasonable. Such sentiments would hardly be welcomed were they espoused by a victorious athlete. And it ought not be any different for Trump, even as he has managed to grab the wheel of the rudderless ship that is the Grand Old Party.
No, sports media has not turned on conservatism. Maybe, instead, Curt Schilling and others should ask if the right wing has turned on decency, dignity, and basic human rights.
Perhaps someone can create a meme.