Sox’ invite is declined by Schilling
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has declined the team’s invitation to be part of the April 9 Opening Day ceremonies at Fenway Park, a source with direct knowledge told the Globe.
The Sox on Monday announced plans to honor the 20th anniversary of the 2004 champions, who are famous for ending the team’s 86-year World Series drought.
Schilling was a key part of that team, forever earning his place in Red Sox lore by pitching with a surgically repaired ankle in Game 6 of the ALCS against the Yankees — known as the “Bloody Sock” game.
The Sox also plan to honor the lives of Tim and Stacy Wakefield that day. Tim, who started Game 1 of the 2004 World Series against the Cardinals, died in October from brain cancer. His wife Stacy died from a different type of cancer in February.
Schilling came under fire in September for revealing the health diagnoses of the Wakefields in the days before Tim’s death.
Schilling spent the last four seasons of his career with the Red Sox, playing an integral role in helping the club win World Series titles in 2004 and 2007.
º Staff predictions for the 2024 baseball season (hint: Red Sox not among favorites). C2
After his playing career, Schilling has brought upon himself several controversies. In August 2015, ESPN suspended him for a month from his broadcasting job for posting a social media comment that compared radical Muslims to Nazis, and the network fired him in April 2016 after he shared a Facebook post widely viewed as hostile to the transgender community.
In 2016, Schilling wrote, “Ok, so much awesome here” on a Twitter photo of a Donald Trump supporter wearing a T-shirt with the words “Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some assembly required.”
His 10-year window of eligibility to be voted into the Baseball Hall of Fame by writers closed in 2022, but not before Schilling requested his name be removed from the ballot in the final year (it was not). In 2021, after falling 16 votes short of election, he posted a 1,200-word diatribe on Facebook decrying the media for their “claims” of bad behavior that he says kept him from the Hall.