Curt Schilling Wins 2008 Cy Young Award

Nick Carfardo has the break-down on Curt Schilling's contract. It's an $8 million base plus a lot of incentives. One of the incentives is very interesting. Schilling gets a cool $1 million if he receives just a single 1st, 2nd or 3rd place vote for the 2008 AL Cy Young Award.

Think about that for a minute.

You know that if Curt has an even half-decent year that some sportswriter will think to himself, "Sure I'll vote for Schilling. Why not? It's not my money - the Red Sox are rich anyway. Maybe I can get a story out of this? Maybe Curt will use that money to buy himself a new car and hey if he wants to give me his old car - hey who does that hurt?"

You KNOW that there are sportswriters thinking along those very lines. They would never voice those views though because in their eyes they are the bastions of truth, justice and the journalistic way. But we all know the thought will cross their mind and lodge there like half a ham sandwich in Michael Moore's colon.

Now think of this - what if a bunch of writers all had the same thought? They all think to themselves, "I'll give Curt my 3rd place vote and I'll call him to let him know. When he gets his money I'm sure he'll remember who made it possible." What if the race for AL Cy Young is very close like its expected to be this year or like the 1998 NL Cy Young race? A guy like Schilling could come out of nowhere to win the award. Seriously - if there are a bunch of good candidates (like this year with Beckett, Sabathia, Carmona and Lackey and reliever JJ Putz) then a wildcard gathering lots of 3rd place votes could realistically take home the award.

You may think, "Oh the baseball writers would never do something like that. They hold their votes as almost sacred." Just remember - these are the same guys who two years ago gave 2 Hall of fame votes to Greg freakin' Jefferies, 5 votes to Ozzie Guillen and another 5 votes to Hal "76 career HR" Morris. What were you thinking about their votes being sacred to them?

Then you factor in that the baseball writers' ballots are not public. Still think that they won't sink to the levels described?

All I know is that the next time I go to Las Vegas - I'm going to scour the sports books to find a joint that is taking action of the 2008 AL Cy Young Award and I'll bet the maximum on Curt Schilling to show.