Post Playing Career
| Mike Schmidt's number 20 was retired by the Philadelphia Phillies in 1990. |
Schmidt opted, at first, to pursue a more private lifestyle after his career, rather than to become a manager or coach. He has written a number of articles on baseball for CBS and regularly participates in charity golf tournaments. He spent one season as a member of the Phillies broadcast team on the now-defunct PRISM network. He was known as a very candid and honest broadcaster despite his limited experience in the area.
In 1991, he and Nolan Ryan were inducted into the Peter J. McGovern Little League Museum's Hall of Excellence (established in 1988), thereby becoming only the second and third MLB players inducted into the Hall.
In 1995, Schmidt was elected into the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum with what was then the fourth highest percentage ever, 96.52%. (Nolan Ryan and George Brett surpassed his percentage in 1999).
In 1999, he ranked number 28 on The Sporting News's list of the 100 Greatest Baseball Players, the highest-ranking third baseman, and the highest-ranking player whose career began after 1967. Later that year, he was elected to the Major League Baseball All-Century Team. His uniform number 20 has been retired by the Phillies, and he has been honored with a statue outside the third-base gate at the team's home, Citizens Bank Park.
Schmidt has publicly expressed his thoughts on various baseball controversies. He has been a vocal advocate for the reinstatement of Pete Rose to baseball. In July 2005, he appeared on Bob Costas' HBO show Costas Now to discuss steroids, and said, "Let me go out on a limb and say that if I had played during that era I would have taken steroids... We all have these things we deal with in life, and I'm surely not going to sit here and say to you guys, 'I wouldn't have done that.'"
In his 2006 book, Clearing the Bases: Juiced Players, Shrinking Ballparks, Sham Records, and a Hall of Famer's Search for the Soul of Baseball, he somewhat recanted that statement, saying that he understood the desire to get a competitive advantage even though he could not condone breaking the rules to do so.
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