Curt Schilling said he was going to announce his intentions known on "Joe Buck Live" last night. That should have been a big enough clue for you. If your Senate bid begins on "Joe Buck Live" you might as well higher Gary Coleman's campaign manager from when he ran for governor of California. As expected Schilling made the following announcement:
“Regardless of the amount of support and outreach that’s been given to me, it just did not make sense.”
Finally Schilling says something that almost everyone can agree with.
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Curt Schilling was a guest on Mad Dog Unleashed yesterday on XM/Sirius and was asked by Chris Russo if Manny's PED use taints the Red Sox Championships:
Russo: “Do you think it takes away a little bit from the Red Sox’ championship in ’04?”
Schilling: “Listen, if you’re going to be one of those guys who thinks there is a team in the last 15 years that has played with 25 clean guys for 162 games, you’re lying to yourself....Given what we know, given the numbers, there’s no team that went through a full season and won a world championship in the last 15 years, could be 20 years, that was [totally] clean. I don’t think it takes away from our championship because using that argument, how many players on the other side of the fence were using as well? We beat a Yankee team that had how many users on it?...If you’re going to cheapen one you cheapen them all. The fact of the matter is people want to make an argument about, ‘Oh, these guys were cheating. It wasn’t a level playing field.’ It was absolutely a level playing field because there were guys on every team using it. That doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t make it just. That makes it the way it was.”
Based on his regular-season numbers, Schilling falls short of Cooperstown status. His 216 wins rank 80th on the all-time list. To put that in perspective, some of the names around him are Kenny Rogers (219), Charlie Hough (216) and Kevin Brown (211). Not exactly plaque-worthy, are they?......But Schilling’s career was about more than just statistics. It was about impact, how one pitcher influenced three different franchises in a major way.... He won’t be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but he’ll find his way into Cooperstown eventually. Because in baseball, more than any other sport, mediocre seasons here and there are forgotten over time.
True greatness, on the other hand, lives on forever
But he was great theater any time he took the mound, and for a stretch of nearly a decade (roughly 1997-2006), he was one of the top half-dozen pitchers in the game. Take all that, and add the October heroics, and Schilling starts to look pretty Hall-worthy.
Two years I was lukewarm about Schilling's Hall of Fame candidacy. I wasn't against it, exactly. But neither was I for it. But during those two years, Schilling helped pitch the Red Sox to another championship and I got just a little bit smarter. Today I can't imagine a Hall of Fame without him.
Schilling brought hope to Boston the moment he started filming his Dunkin' Donuts commercials by wearing his "Why not us?" t-shirt. He was the keystone to the 2004 and 2007 seasons, without him the Red Sox Nation might still be talking about a curse. No matter what you think about his politics, he is the guy you wanted to have on the mound against the Yankees; he was no Pedro when it came to silencing opposing fans. He deserves a spot in the Hall and needs to be wearing a Sox cap when he goes.
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Curt Schilling has recently joined WEEI.com as a blogger but as soon as he inked the deal he was off to Iraq to visit some troops. After looking at this picture I somehow don't feel safer.
Rob Bradford of WEEI.com has announced that Curt Schilling will be participating in online chats during select Red Sox games throughout the season. He did show up during game 7 of the ALCS on WEEI's live blog. Schilling uses the same screen name "Gehrig38" on WEEI as he does on Sons of Sam Horn.
Yesterday I had a post on how important Thanksgiving 2003 was to the Red Sox, today Curt Schilling writes his version of what happened on that day. Another note on Schilling is that he is writing for WEEI.com full time foregoing his own blog 38pitches.com.
Thanksgiving 5 years ago marked one of the most important events in Red Sox history. Theo went to Arizona that November day in 2003, he gave up time with his family to eat with the Schillings and convince Curt that he could be part of something special.
"If we didn't sign Curt, it probably would have been the worst Thanksgiving of my life," Epstein said. "We tried to refuse, and Curt said it was a deal-breaker, they would be insulted if we didn't go."
The deal helped the Red Sox win 2 World Series Championships. What is Theo up to this holiday season? The winter meetings start Dec. 5 so get ready for some moves.
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Curt Schilling posted some scathing criticism of Manny Ramirez on his blog yesterday but got cold feet and removed the post. Evan at Firebrand of the AL was able to save some of the highlights like the one below before the post was taken down.
A guy refusing to get on a team plane, having to be literally coaxed on, by people with pride and people that love the game, because meeting the obligations of a 20 million dollar contract were not even close to enough to get him going???? If he did not get traded he was going to need "time off" to rest his injured knee, and it got to the point where he made it clear time off could mean the rest of the season.
Curt Schilling has a new post up at 38pitches.com where he talks about Lackey's comments. Here's some highlights:
Emotions for me are raw for days after a game, much less an hour or two. You ask me about something that I’m upset/fired up or/excited about and many times I will give an emotional and probably more times than I would like to admit, irrational, response.....but....The better team ALWAYS wins in October. Like it or not the better team wins, always. I don’t care what your regular season record is, it means zero other than to determine where we are playing. He was mad, their season was over, it happens and I completely understand his emotional response. Don’t put too much stock in it. Fact of the matter is the better team won and he got out pitched, twice. I don’t care about ‘bloopers’ or the ‘field effects’, both pitchers started even, Jon out pitched him. October has never been, and never will be about pitching good. October demands pitching great, pretty much every inning of every game. Good gets you early tee times.
Curt also gives his take on the failed squeeze play in last night's game.
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The Herald is reporting that Curt Schilling sugery went better than expected, making it possible for him to possibly pitch next season. Not that it matters much to the Sox unless he is going to take a major discount.
Curt Schilling will not be on the mound for the Sox this year. After returning to Boston from Philly the Sox and Curt Schillinge decided that he could not pitch effectively again without surgery. He also said his chances of pitching again were 3-10 and the surgery is to make his shoulder pain free. The Sox will discuss the issue with a press conference later today. Schilling announced his plan on WEEI this morning, you can listen to the interview here. Nothing yet on 38pitches.com. This is not a real surprising development and to be honest it is not as bad as when we first learned about the injury before the season because the Sox now have Masterson and Colon to pitch. The news may cause the Sox to trade Coco for a starter if not a guy for this season, one that could join the rotation next year.
The Good: Big Papi's cast came off today and he can begin the rehab of his wrist. Dice-K had a good rehab start tonight going 5 innings giving up 3 hits and 2 runs. Dustin Pedroia is deffinetly out of the slump after going 3-4 tonight with a home run.
The Bad: Bartolo Colon had a stiff back forcing him to leave tonight' game early, this could be a nagging injury for the remainder of the season and limit any trade value he might have. Curt Schilling has been given some time off after a few bad bullpen sessions. It is unclear if this is a temporary setback or a sign that he will not return this season.
The Ugly: Mike Timlin gave up 4 hits, 2 walks and 4 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning to the Phillies tonight.
Bartolo Colon left tonight's game in the 4th with a back injury. He was not pitching well in the game and gave up 3 runs in the first including a lead-off homer. In case you thought that Schill would be ready to step in think again. Look at this tidbit from GoldBlog:
Curt Schilling is in a holding pattern at the moment. He had a couple of poor bullpen outings last week and the team wants to slow things down a bit. Schilling met with Terry Francona this afternoon, but no word yet on when he will start throwing again.
Time for Masterson or Buchholz to step up.
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Curt Schilling has had no problems with throwing off of the mound and has been throwing harder. He will face hitters next week. From the looks of it Schilling could be making some rehab starts by the end of the month and could join the rotation after the All-Star Break...if all goes as planned. In the interim Schilling has been stirring up some heat in the media with his recent bashing of Kobe and the Lakers on 38pitches.com.
Red Sox players were on hand for game two of the NBA Finals tonight to cheer on the Celtics. David Ortiz, Jon Lester, and Curt Schilling were all in attendance. Jon Lester was honored as a "Hero Among Us" by the Celtics before the game. Just like in years past the Lakers whined about the conditions of the Garden; now they are saying it is too cold.
Dice-K will begin throwing again this weekend. John Farrell told the ProJo the following, “This weekend is our target date... It’s just the early stage. He would play catch from 60-to90 feet, then progress to long tossing before he gets up on the mound again.”
Curt Schilling will also throw off of a mound for the first time on June 6th.
UPDATE: Schilling threw 25 pitches off the mound today, he was upset he only threw 22 for strikes. Looks like things are progressing nicely.
Curt Schilling has been throwing from a distance of 100 feet and has been throwing breaking balls from 60 feet. He commented about his rehab with the following to the Boston Herald:
“We’ll just keep going with more throws and more distance. We’ll keep going until we run into a day that we can’t. But we haven’t had a bad day yet.”
Curt Schilling has a new post up at 38pitches.com where he discussses Lester's no hitter. Here are a few highlights:
"The thing I smiled most about, and was most proud of, well things actually, was the fact he kept within himself, never let a pitch, or an at bat get away from him, and showed why he’s a potential top of the rotation, ace kind of guy."
"It’s the thing that will always make baseball the greatest game on earth. On ANY given night you have many chances to see something you’ll never see again, or that’s never happened before, after over a 100 years of the game being played already."
I have to agree with Schilling on that, you never know what you are going to see at a baseball game...kinda like going to a Grateful Dead concert. I was at the game in Oakland last season when Schilling almost had his no hitter. The strangest thing I ever saw at a game was a guy who jumped from the upper deck at Yankee Stadium into the net behind home plate. He told reporters he did it because he thought the game was boring. I think it was because he was a drunk Yankee fan and the Sox were winning.
