One of my normal stops in the blogosphere is 38 Pitches. If by now, you don’t know who writes it, it is none other than #38 Curt Schilling. As I have said before, I think it’s great that he shares his feelings and thoughts with the fans about baseball and other things.
Well his last post was a classic. Well at least the headline was. “Why The Media Sucks….” It wasn’t really about bashing the media, it was more of him talking about his contract situation and contract plans. I will take a few excerpts from it but I am implore you to read the article if your a Sox fan or a Schilling fan.
1) It was no mystery, since I’d said it since day 1 of signing the contract back in 2003 with Boston, 2007 was to be my final season (well 2006 was if we hadn’t won the World Series, but we did). Shonda and I, and our kids had talked at length about where and what we were going to do after the season was over but non-retirement had never really become a topic. At some point last year she and I began discussing, or mulling over, the thought of playing beyond 2007. We never talked at length or in depth but it was something we chatted about on and off during the year. 38 Studios became a reality and playing another year became less of an option at that point. The season ended and the winter came and almost went and a lot of things happened. The first was that physically I felt much better than I anticipated feeling, and the second was a talk with Shonda. In late January we spoke at length and both decided that if the good Lord found it in himself to keep me healthy I would not retire following the 2007 season. After a short discussion with the kids, who were ecstatic (though a bit put off since we promised them puppies when I retired) it became clear to me that this was the right thing to do.
2) I knew for a fact that this would catch the Red Sox off guard and so I made a call to Theo that night to inform him of the decision. I got the impression he was pretty fired up about it and we talked long enough for me to think that the contract situation was pretty much resolved and 2008 would be spent in Boston.
3) Not long after that I got word, and then Theo did, that someone in the media had found out and was going to talk about it. That’s when I spoke with D & C about going on their show to make the ‘announcement’. The main reason I felt that was the way to go was twofold really. They’ve been very good to me, and more importantly to ALS through the monies they’ve raised.
The Red Sox owe me nothing. They’ve paid me over 40 million dollars for what amounts to two seasons worth of starts. They didn’t ask for a refund in ‘05 when I couldn’t get my mother out, and on top of that they’ve been respectful of my family at every turn.
That being said there’s been speculation that many ‘off the field’ things have made it so we can’t, or won’t play elsewhere. That’s just not true. The Red Sox know that at the end of spring training we will no longer discuss 2008 until after free agency becomes an option. While it may appear as if it’s a ploy, it’s not. One of the disadvantages to this market is the sheer volume of news, and what’s really news as opposed to what isn’t. I was very clear in that I would not allow this to be a story once we started playing games that count, the team, the organization and most importantly my teammates don’t deserve to be asked questions about something that has nothing to do with winning or losing ballgames, and that’s exactly where this would go.
I left a comment over on his blog and the question I posed was this: If the Red Sox offered you a contract for the league minimum, would you still sign with them? It will be interesting to see if he really does answer that. My guess is that he would say yes. He doesn’t need the money. I think the $13 million dollar figure he threw out there was his current salary. Could he get more by going somewhere else, sure he could. But if you have read the whole article, his heart in is Boston now. He has moved his family there permanently, sold his house in Arizona and soon the one in Philadelphia. His new business venture is in the Boston area but as he said, he doesn’t need to be there every day.
As much as the Red Sox are taking a wait-and-see approach with him, I wish they would offer him a reasonable contract so that this is one less thing for the Sox to worry about in the off-season. There are some potential class free agents after the 2007 season and knowing that we will have our 26 year old triplets (Matsuzaka, Beckett, Papelbon) back plus Jon Lester next season, Schilling could make that rotation just as strong as it is now.
