Curt Schilling was interviewed by the fans on Boston Dirt Dogs, and the interview was released today. In it, a question that I asked Schilling was answered – it was about the media. My question and his answer is reprinted in full, with a link to the rest of the interview. I would suggest you follow that link and read the interview. If you don’t have time, you really ought to at least follow the link and read the rest of the Media section that he talks about. Yes, I know there is no way for me to prove to you readers that I asked said question, but I know the Boston Globe (who owns the Dirt Dogs) has the username of who asked the question stored in the database – and the username is EvanAtMVN. Only one person who has that username, folks.
“Curt Schilling is a smart guy. He knows what it takes to earn his place in this town,” said Dave Micilli, a North Boston dweller. “It’s all about Larry Bird and Bobby Orr in Boston. If you want a statue of you in Faneuil Hall, you’ve got to get blood on your sock,” Micilli said. And Micilli shrugged his shoulders, along with his group of Red Sox-rooting buddies who were also amused but skeptical about what it was exactly that was on Schilling’s sock.”
In a column on Monday, Laura Vecsey of the Baltimore Sun wrote that she thought it was doubtful that the red on your sock was not real blood. Can you give a definitive answer on what the red stuff on the sock was? Was it blood, painkiller residue, et. al?
CS: “It was blood. The blood was made to be a much bigger deal than it truly was. I had sutures in my ankle, and the sutured area was being torqued. It bled a lot more in NY simply because one of the sutures broke in the bullpen. Prior to that the sutured area was leaking due to the depth they had to go to tie the skin down. So you had a combination of blood and fluid that was slowly leaking during the game. People associate blood with pain, and most times rightly so, but not this time. There was not a lot of pain before or during the games due to the amount of Marcaine and Lidocaine they had put into the joint. The main issue for me was the numbness. Imagine putting your shoe on and only feeling like half of your foot was actually in the shoe.”
“There were also a lot of mitigating circumstances. No one would have ever known the blood existed outside the training staff had Rebook sent me high tops that fit. The first pair they sent me were too small, and the second pair became a problem after the sutures were put in because they were putting too much pressure on the sutured area. In the end I went back to my game shoes from the season. Game 1 in NY I had to tie my shoes about 10 times for one simple reason, Rebook took my game shoes from the season to make the high tops, unbeknownst to be at the time, and I can’t tie double knots. So I had a new pair of low tops, with shoe laces way too long. I think Scott Miller wrote that I was trying to draw attention to my ankle by tying my shoes all the time in Game 1, which was false, I was trying to tie my right shoe because it came untied about 10 times and every time I looked up the Yanks were running around the bases. So I was retying my shoe and at the same time trying to take a moment to figure out how the hell I was going to get someone out.”
Read the rest of the article – what he did Sunday to pitch; what he thinks of Laura Vecsey and the media; Jon Heyman’s article on Schilling; and other various questions.
(Any reply to Ms. Vecsey on the spirit of her piece? – “Other than she’s a bad person? No. There are a lot of her in that industry, Pedro Gomez, Joel Heyman, to name a few. People with so little skill in their profession that they need to speculate, make up, fabricate, to write something interesting enough to be printed.”)
BITTER YANKEE FANS
“It’s not over until you win the World Series.”
“We didn’t choke. Three of the games came down to the final at-bat.”
“The umpires were in the Sox’s pocket.”
“A-Rod was safe.”
“OK, if you win the World Series, congratulations. You’ve got 19 more to match us.”
even if you win team is traded away