Posts tagged Curt Schilling at FanHouse

Later today, the Red Sox will stroll out of the visitor's dugout and face the Yankees for the final time at venerable Yankee Stadium. There will be other goodbyes to the House That Ruth Built in the coming weeks, but with the Bronx Bombers a major longshot to play into October, this series seems to have taken on special significance.

Here are a dozen of the finest moments in the best rivalry in American sports, all of which took place at Yankee Stadium. Even Red Sox fans have to be feeling a little nostalgic about their team's final visit. After all, the franchise's finest hour took place there.

1. Oct. 16, 2003: The ghosts strike one last time. After Red Sox manager Grady Little leaves Pedro Martinez in well past the 100-pitch mark with a 5-2 lead in the eighth inning, the Yankees rally to force extra innings. In the 11th, Aaron Boone sends a deep fly into the Bronx night, sending New York to the World Series and crushing Boston's dreams of ending the Curse of the Bambino again.

To fans and the media, what a team does in the MLB Draft pales next to a big free-agent signing or blockbuster trade.

Part of that is the gaudy figures thrown around during the hot stove season. The Red Sox, this year's top spender in the draft, couldn't even buy one year of Gil Meche if they shifted their draft outlay to the open market. Most of it stems from immediacy, though. A big winter signing answers the question who will help me today? A big haul in the draft answers who will help me tomorrow, but in most cases tomorrow is years away, if it ever comes at all.

Still, as the cost of free agents escalates, the draft continues to become the most important way to ensure long-term success. With that in mind, and with the deadline to sign picks in the books, here's a look at three teams who won and three teams who lost in the 2008 draft

Was Manny Ramirez's presence in Boston's clubhouse really a distraction? Curt Schilling thinks so. In an interview with Boston sports radio station WEEI this morning, Schilling held nothing back talking about his former teammate. From the Boston Globe:

"You kind of hope it didn't happen because it ends up being someone getting what they wanted after doing every possible thing ethically they could do wrong," Schilling said. "I was in that clubhouse after that and the change in atmosphere was palpable and I don't think you can put a price tag on that."

While unloading on his former teammate, Schilling also talked about an incident from 2005 in which he and Ramirez had to be separated by teammates after Schilling chided Ramirez for sitting out a game against the Devil Rays to avoid facing pitcher Seth McClung.

That the two teammates had a near dust-up isn't really news -- the incident was reported in the Boston Herald when it happened -- but it's still amusing that Schilling decided to bring it up now, three years after the fact. There's nothing classier than dressing down a guy after he's already left the building.

The most entertaining athletes are the most transparent ones, and no one makes information about their life and career available to the public than Curt Schilling does on 38pitches.com. Over the weekend, he took that transparency to a new level by actually posting pictures taken of his shoulder during his recent surgery (warning: a couple of the pictures are not for the squeamish) and giving everyone a detailed recap of what took place.

Schilling's trademark blowhardedness aside, I actually thought that the whole idea by Schilling to post those pictures was pretty cool. How many times have you wondered just what happened when a pitcher for your favorite team went under the knife? Who actually knew that labrums were all fluffy-looking? Med students, maybe. Baseball fans, not so much.

Of course, since Schilling's involved it's pretty clear that there's an ulterior motive. There was a lot of speculation about his latest injury (whether or not he knew about before re-signing with the Red Sox, whether or not he would ever pitch again), and Schilling uses the post to describe the injury, why it wasn't caught earlier, how it was fixed, and what that means for his future chances of pitching again.

Schilling's blog gives him a chance to give everyone (the fans, the media, teams he might pitch for in 2009) his side of the story without anyone trying to spin it. Why don't more professional athletes have blogs again?

After spring-training melodrama and a seemingly dire shoulder injury on his plate, it seems people have started to seriously write off Curt Schilling. The Hall of Fame discussions are everywhere. Schilling is talking about how he "might have thrown his last pitch forever." It's not looking good.

Ah, but! If the miracle of modern medicine has taught us one thing repeatedly, it's that very rich athletes can sometimes get miraculous medical care. Schilling's surgery went well, and he could be throwing as soon as January:

"This really is a best case scenario," Morgan said by cell phone after the 1-hour, 45-minute procedure. "He wants to pitch one more year if it's structurally possible with the type of surgery that went on," Morgan said. "My answer is: It is structurally possible if all goes well with the healing process, and I don't have control over that."

As he stands right now, Schilling is a borderline Hall of Famer (his K numbers are ridiculous; his win total, not as much). With another year of plus-average pitching underneath him -- and another World Series win for a team willing to have him as a fourth starter -- his case would be almost undeniable. Either way, it would be a major shock to see him pitching next season. Like, more shocking than if I came up with a funny kicker to end this blog post instead of just rambling on about nothing really and just typing stream-of-consciousness nonsense until I slowly lose everyone's attention. See?

The news that Curt Schilling needs shoulder surgery that will certainly end his season and possibly his career does not come as much of a surprise. He's 41, after all, and has battled arm problems for some time now. If retirement is next for Schilling, it gives rise to what will be an interesting annual discussion starting in five years time. Is Curt Schilling worthy of the Hall of Fame?

The negative side of the argument will center on the fact that Schilling will finish with just 216 wins in his career. That's less than guys who haven't been able to get in like Bert Blyleven and Tommy John and guys like Joe Neikro and Frank Tanana who never even got a sniff from voters. There's also been some discussion of his troubled relationships with some writers but that's about it on the negative side of the ledger.

The latter shouldn't matter if you're judging a player on his on-field merits and the former should be an afterthought when you look at the entirety of his career. When you eliminate active players and relievers, Schilling's got the fourth best strikeout/9IP and the second best strikeout/walk ratio of all time. His ERA+ is 127, same as Tom Seaver, and, once you eliminate turn of the century guys, right alongside most other Hall of Fame starters.

On Deck is FanHouse's look at the day's most intriguing baseball matchups.

Chicago White Sox (41-32) at Chicago Cubs (46-28) - 1:05 PM ET

Friday was the first time that both Chicago's baseball teams entered a series against each other in first place. The initial game did not disappoint, with Aramis Ramirez smacking two home runs, including the walk off extravaganza in the ninth to win the game for the Cubs. But the Cubs have more surprises for the White Sox. Before the game yesterday, Ozzie Guillen took another shot at Wrigley Field, saying that under the right field bleachers, there are "rats out there are lifting weights" while the assembled media laughed. Little does Guillen know that Lou Piniella is thinking about using a couple of those rats in key pinch hitting situations today. Then ... who will be laughing?

Sure feels like we've been talking about Curt Schilling a lot this year. You know, for a guy that hasn't pitched a single freaking inning yet. That's probably because his blog, FakeBloodySock.com 38Pitches, has been getting to much pub for being a whiny, hit n' run joint.

But Schilling might not throw a single regulation pitch this season -- and maybe ever again -- because his next scheduled surgery (June 23) could effectively end his career.

On WEEI radio's "Dennis & Callahan Show," Schilling said, "We're still nailing down exactly what kind of surgery it's going to be. When asked if he thought it would end his season, Schilling said yes.

"My season is over and there is a pretty decent chance I have thrown my last pitch forever," he said.

It would seem odd not to have Schill prominently featured as one of baseball's faces. Some people see him as a gasbag type that will spout off on any topic, and others (raises hand) can at least smell our own, so we throw him a little First Amendment love.

They say no news is good news. A ton of news, it follows, would be bad news. That's not quite the case for the Red Sox but it's definitely a mixed bag when it comes to the health of their pitching staff. The negative dispatches begin with Bartolo Colon.

The righthander went on the disabled list today after his humorous attempts at swinging a bat fouled up his back. Colon had done a nice job since joining the rotation but the team should be able to weather his loss without skipping too many beats. Daisuke Matsuzaka is set to be activated from the DL on Saturday, when Colon was next scheduled to start.

The really bad news is that if the rotation does need a shot in the arm at some point down the road, it's unlikely to come from Curt Schilling. He returned to Boston early so that he could meet with the team's medical director about his shoulder. Schilling was supposed to face live hitters soon but pitching coach John Farrell indicated that the schedule was going to be pushed back.

"He was optimistic. He was at the point of looking down at the calendar a little bit and put the pieces into potential dates. Now he seems to have hit a plateau."

Ah well, it just leaves Schilling more time to come to grips with the frailties of officiating. I'm already looking forward to hearing his thoughts on the gymnastics judging in Beijing later this summer.

Much has been made about Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling sitting courtside at Game 2 of the Celtics-Lakers series in Boston and then blogging afterwards about how he thought that Lakers captain Kobe Bryant is too harsh on his teammates. In fact, the exact words "bitch at his teammates" were used in Schilling's post about Bryant.

Well, after Wednesday's practice in L.A., Bryant responded to Schilling's claims. And while KB24's response was just two words, it was certainly MVP-worthy. When asked what he thought about Schilling's blog, Kobe simply replied:

"Go Yankees."

After a ton of laughter ensued, Bryant then went on to clarify what he meant.

"I mean, look, I know my team," said Bryant. "After the time of all those bleeps, we almost pulled off one of the greatest comebacks in history. It seemed to motivate them pretty well."

After winning Game 3, it would appear that Kobe has some room to talk. So at this point, if you're keeping score at home, that would make it: Mambas 1 - Bloody Socks 1 (in the bottom of the sixth inning).