
If you’re a Red Sox fan, y’all remember the bloody sock game in 2004. Game 6 of the ALCS versus the Yankees. Sox trailing in the series 3-2. We all know what happened. Then again in Game 2 of the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.
Well last night, Orioles broadcaster made these remarks to Hall of Famer Jim Palmer, who was doing the color during the game. Watch the video to hear what he said.
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A couple of innings later he followed up with this:
During a break two innings later, Thorne confirmed that’s what he said, and that Mirabelli had told him so in a conversation “a couple of years ago.”
“Go ask him [Mirabelli],” Thorne said.
Are you kidding me? He faked it for the publicity. So is Thorne saying that Curt Schilling didn’t have his ankle sutured before the game.
This was Mirabelli’s response to Thorne’s statement:
“What? Are you kidding me? He’s [expletive] lying. A straight lie,” Mirabelli said. “I never said that. I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood.”
Terry Francona weighed in as well:
Sox manager Terry Francona, when first told of Thorne’s remarks, thought that perhaps Mirabelli had been having some fun with Thorne, that it was all a joke. But after Mirabelli angrily denied ever discussing the subject with Thorne — “I honestly don’t know who Gary Thorne is, that’s a straight lie” — Francona became agitated.
“What we’re going through today as a nation, you hate to use a word like heroic on the field, but what Schill did that night on the sports field was one of the most incredible feats I ever witnessed,” Francona said. “[Thorne’s remarks] go so far past disappointing. Disrespectful to Schill, to his vocation. I’m stunned.
“I am just floored. Schill takes his share of shots, and this one is so far below the belt that I’m embarrassed and I wish somebody would have had the good conscience to ask me. I saw the leg. If that had been painted, I wouldn’t have had my knuckles so white, and having so much anxiety.”
Schilling added this:
“It gets stupider,” Schilling said with a tone of resignation in his voice. “I got the 9-inch scar for you. You can see it.
“There are some bad people in your line of work, man.”
I think Theo Epstein’s remarks were the best of the bunch:
“You’re kidding me, right?” Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein wrote in an e-mail last night. “I’m the GM of the team, not Jerry Springer. I couldn’t give two [expletives] about what was on his sock, I care that we won the game. The rest, and Gary Thorne, is just noise.”
Larry Lucchino responded as well last night and as well today:
“I have never heard any such thing internally, and I refuse to believe it now,” Lucchino wrote. “It was a courageous moment for Curt Schilling and a glorious moment for the Red Sox, and it shouldn’t be sullied with such speculation now.”
Lucchino gave the official Sox statement today:
“Regarding the remarks made on Wednesday by Baltimore Orioles announcer Gary Thorne, the Red Sox will not respond to or dignify these insinuations with extensive comment. Such gossip occurred in 2004 and we will not participate in further comment other than to remind everyone that we remain steadfastly proud of the courageous efforts by a seriously injured Curt Schilling — efforts that helped lead the Red Sox to the 2004 World Series Championship.”
More on the bloody sock issue after the jump. Continue reading →