From a 2011 interview with Mike Schmidt:
What’s wrong with Gold Glove voting, in a sentence
Are you more proud of your 10 Gold Gloves or your eight NL home run crowns?
Schmidt: The latter. Gold Gloves are nice to have people mention. They’re basically saying you’re a pretty good defensive player along with everything else. But I was about the offensive side. The defensive side, I knew was part of the game and all that, but not something that I really worked on. Also, as the incumbent Gold Glove winner, it’s kind of hard to unseat you.
If I told you Ivan Rodriguez received Gold Glove votes last season, even though he was retired from baseball, would that surprise you? They don’t release the vote totals, so I have no way of knowing if that’s true, but it sounds like it could be true, doesn’t it?
It shouldn’t be harder to unseat a Gold Glover than a member of Congress. At least congressmen have a built-in advantage: the franking privilege, which, don’t fool yourself, is no small thing. I would rather have the franking privilege than all the tea in China. But then, I hate tea. It’s just hot, dirty water.
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