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.
[youtube BkAMInhHBN0 nolink]
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.
Dr. Bill Morgan, who performed the surgery on Schilling said this:
“C’mon,” Morgan said today from the Fallon Clinic in Worcester, “we all know what the reality is. I don’t know where that comes from.
“I drilled a whole bunch of holes in the guy’s ankle when we put the sutures in, we put a dressing on them, and the blood soaked through the dressing. The sock is like a sponge. It doesn’t take a whole lot of blood, but there’s like a capillary effect.”
“Anyone who’s ever had stitches knows there’s going to be oozing from the wound. I put a bunch of stitches in the guy, and then he had to go out there and pitch at a professional level. The sutures were tugging at the skin, it opened up a little bit. The thing expanded right before our eyes.”
The Baseball Hall of Fame confirmed that the sock was real because of the discoloration of the blood on it.
And they know, according to the Associated Press, because the color of the sock that’s displayed in the Hall of Fame, from Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, is now brown, a natural discoloration of blood over time.
Hall of Fame spokesman Jeff Idelson said he has “no idea†where Schilling’s bloody sock from the ALCS is being kept, but is confident that the second bloody sock, which Schilling delivered to Cooperstown himself, is authentic.
“We have no reason to doubt Curt, who has a profound respect for the history of the game and is cognizant of his role as a history maker,†Idelson said. He added, “The stain on the sock is now brown, which is what happens to blood over time.â€
Thorne is well respected in the broadcasting business. He also had done hockey for ESPN and does some ESPN baseball broadcasts as well. I don’t think that Mirabelli ever said this to Thorne. It’s asinine for Thorne to make accusations like this without having the actual proof. Taking someone’s word is one thing but where’s the evidence. Do you have the sock? No!!! Only Schilling knows where the first sock is. The second one is in the Hall of Fame and they confirmed it was blood today. Do we need to call Gil Grissom and crew to extract DNA from it to confirm it’s Schilling’s blood on the sock.
Do the right thing tonight and retract your statement Mr. Thorne.