Wednesday 4/10/24
I wasn't sure what time the Red Sox' home opener began yesterday, so I put NESN on because it was around then and I like to see the first pitch of both the regular season opener and the home opener each year if I can. I was too early and came in in the middle of a tribute to the 2004 Red Sox to the strains of Don McLean's "American Pie."
You won't see me sticking around for "American Pie" or pretty much any of these looking back ceremonies. I think they're maudlin, depressing, defeatist. Like life is over for the people who were involved, and also the people who live through the achievements of others and look back themselves on what those others did while aging out of this world which really comes down to their own complicity and lack of drive and purpose. I do not look back. I go forward. The work I haven't created yet is the most important work to me.
Anyway, I know Curt Schilling wasn't there, having read some comments from Derek Lowe about him and how that was for the best. Lowe was understandably angry and disgusted about Schilling. It really is something how much Curt Schilling disgraced himself as a person. I'd mentioned that I'd seen him on Twitter, this grown man in his fifties responding to people with "suck it" and taunts of "nice comeback." If someone is past the time of high school and they're still saying something like that, you know you're just dealing with a stunted, brainless lump of human flesh.
There's clearly a lot wrong with this guy, but to publicly reveal that your ex-teammate and his wife are dying of cancer when they don't want anyone to know?
That is dark. It stems from his ego and his ignorance. He thinks he's this chosen being who answers to the divine and his own intelligence, but he's a moron in addition to a loathsome person. Think of how far this guy has fallen if your own teammates despise you and don't want you at their ceremony. Schilling risked his career and his physical health going forward for that team's cause. Bronson Arroyo described the surgical procedure that Schilling had on his ankle in the 2004 ALCS as barbaric.
Schilling was one of the best big game pitchers in all of baseball history. If you had a game you needed to win, there weren't many people you would have rather given the ball to. I wonder who likes someone like this, as in, who chooses to be around him in life? All of that fame and money, and what does he really have? And if you're associating with him, if he's your friend, I think that says a lot about you. I understand that Terry Francona wasn't at the on-field ceremony either, but he did attend the other events leading up to it. I don't blame Francona. I'm not a big backer of his--very overrated as a manager--but John Henry and co. tried to smear and tar this guy as he was leaving town, implying that he was a drug addict. Henry is a disingenuous, two-faced, back-stabbing, cowardly, slithering ghoul.
I separate things when it comes to the likes of the Hall of Fame or the art someone made. You don't think most professional male athletes are cheating on their spouses or significant others all the time? Of course they are. I'd say that makes you a bad person. But that's me. Some of them are still going into the Hall of Fame and they belong there because of their performance on the field, the ice, the court. I do feel that Schilling belongs in baseball's Hall of Fame, but it's not something I would think about after the fact or be pleased to know. For instance, Michael Cooper made the basketball Hall of Fame the other day. I thought that was really cool. I was pleased to know that. He had an important skill set as a defensive whiz and stopper, and that has value, and his value was recognized with the sport's ultimate honor. Going forward, when I peruse his stats on basketball-reference, I'll like knowing that he's in the Hall of Fame. I wouldn't feel that way with Schilling.
I've never seen a Boston athlete fall from grace to such an extent as Schilling. People are so often lunatics themselves, with no morals whatsoever, so I'm sure there are plenty of people who would have no problem with him revealing that a husband and a wife were dying against the wishes of that husband and wife. I did see that the Wakefield's kids were on the field yesterday. What they must be going through, losing both of their parents like that, with the parents being so young and them being so young themselves. Heartbreaking.
