Thanks, Curt Schilling

I love thanksgiving. I always have. It is the one time of year when the entirety of my Dad's side of the family comes from around the country to share one meal together.

But since the fall of 2003, it has had another meaning to me. It was the day that Larry Lucchino and Theo Epstein sat down at a dinner table to bring a World Series to Boston. That night, Curt Schilling made up his mind to continue (and end) his career in a Boston Red Sox uniform. 

I first became a fan of Curt Schiiling (who had spent most of his career in the NL and was therefore a nonentity to me) during the fall of 2001.

I remember pacing around my dorm room during Game Seven, alone, talking to each member of the D-Backs as they came to the plate, wishing and willing them to beat the Yankees and end the nightmare that had been 1998-2000.

Curt was the starting pitcher for Arizona that night, and he pitched excellently, but it was after the game, when he stood up and talked about how he never feared the Yankee mystique (he had earlier said that Mystique and Aura were more like stripper's names than reasons to fear a baseball team), that I began to understand that this was a man who could not be stopped.

The numbers are great: 216 wins, 3,116 Ks, three rings, and the best postseason record ever (11-2, 2.36 ERA - Smoltz is fourth on the win list) are all legitimate reasons to make Curt a Hall of Famer.

But what we will all remember about Big Schill is the fact that he never bullshitted us, did what he said he was here to do, and brought us the World Series that we had all sought for our entire lives.

He wrote this morning:

"This party has officially ended. After being blessed to experience 23 years of playing professional baseball in front of the world's best fans in so many different places, it is with zero regrets that I am making my retirement official."

We all know about what he did in 2004. When he arrived in Boston one of the first things he said was that he hated the Yankees now. He was in Dunkin Donuts commercials learning how to speak with a Boston accent.

He said in his first press conference after being traded from the D-Backs that he was here to make 55,000 Yankees fans shut up. And the reason I am tearing up as I write this is that he did.

First, he won 21 games with a 3.26 ERA. He stood on a mound with blood seeping through his sock, a burst tendon sheath crippling his ankle, and 86 years of crushed hopes on his shoulders, and he did exactly what he had come here to do.

He made those Yanks fans shut the f*** up. Then he pitched in the Word Series and won Game Two.

While millions of people throughout New England and around the world cried out years of frustrations, fear, and pain, Schilling stood in the visitors clubhouse at Busch Stadium and made a toast to the Greatest Red Sox team ever. 

Four more years, another title, and one lost season later, Curt Schilling has retired. He walks away from the game having thrown his last pitch in Game Two of the 2007 World Series, a game which he won.

That is how we should all remember Curt, not for his political views, his bluster, his blog, or even the bloody sock, but a man who came here to do a job, did it better than we could ever have imagined, and gave many of us something that we never thought we would see.

Curt Schilling made it safe to be a Sox fan again. He helped give us the confidence not to worry in 2007 or last season when were were down a paltry 3-1 in the ALCS. 

Dave Roberts Stole Second Base, Curt Schilling Finished the Job.

Thank you, Curt.

Go Sox.

Done.

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