Schilling gladly shares opinions
Ex-pitcher plotting Senate run
NEEDHAM, MASS. Fifteen miles from Fenway Park, Curt Schilling is still throwing fastballs. Now he does it from behind a microphone in a broadcasting studio on Saturday mornings, hurling insults at liberals, the media and other favorite targets during a podcast called — what else? — The Curt Schilling Show.
Less than 10 minutes into his show Saturday, Schilling, a former All-Star pitcher who played for the Boston Red Sox and four other teams, said, “I don’t see how you can be a man living in this country with a family … and even be thinking about voting for the criminal.”
“The criminal” is Schilling ’s nickname for Hillary Clinton, and he considers Clinton’s use of a private server for classified emails far more egregious than, well, what cost him his job as Major League Baseball analyst for ESPN six months ago.
Schilling was fired after posting a meme on Facebook mocking the idea of transgender people us- ing a women’s bathroom. That was less than eight months after he tweeted a meme comparing radical Muslims to Nazis, which prompted ESPN to suspend him for one month.
“The only downside to the firing was, in addition to (lost) finances, I had a lot of very dear friends that I worked with that I loved,” Schilling said during a commercial break Saturday.
“But I worked for people that didn’t have a spine and didn’t want to stand for something other than what their bosses told
them to stand for.”
Now he is working for himself, having launched the podcast Sept. 10 and hosting it in a modest studio in a Boston suburb. And Schilling has bigger aspirations for The Curt Schilling Show.
After hinting at the possibility for months, Schilling said he was planning to run for the U.S. Senate against Elizabeth Warren, whose term ends in 2018. He has imagined his political career going beyond Capitol Hill.
“I would love to be sitting in the Oval Office as the president of the United States,” Schilling said, “because I know and believe in the virtue of this country.” President Schilling? Really? “I’m thinking Senate first,” he said. “But let’s put it this way, this is a country where I can think about (being president), and I like that. I really like that.”
On-air, Schilling has endorsed Donald Trump for president. But he sounds more enthusiastic about his own political career. Impromptu, he rattled off policy positions (pro-life, pro-Second Amendment, pro-flat tax, pro-charter school, pro-state’s rights) and visualized electoral victory.
“My first press conference could be the end of my political career,” Schilling said, “when I get up and I say, ‘ OK, I’m (expletive) firing everybody, because you’re all useless and you’ve screwed this state long enough.’ ”
Schilling, a self-described loudmouth, got a little loud at times with USA TODAY Sports on Saturday while looking forward, looking back and throwing a few high, hard ones at a range of topics and targets. HIS CREDENTIALS Schilling attended junior college — Yavapai College in Prescott, Ariz. — before being drafted by the Red Sox in 1986. He has three World Series rings but no college degree.
Said Schilling, “The first thing I hear is, ‘Hey, what the (expletive), junior college?’ Like that’s an indictment on my intelligence.”
Growing animated, he touted the accomplishments of his 20-year major league career, during which he compiled a record of 216-146, made six All-Star teams and was a runner-up for the Cy Young Award three times.
“The amount of work, time and effort I put into my job kicks the dog (expletive) out of what 99.9999% of the people in the whole world had to do,” said Schilling, 49, who is the father of four children. “I’m like my kids, I think. I was always, in my opinion, far more intelligent than the letters on my report card.”
Schilling made it clear he knows how to read more than scouting reports while saying his mother taught him to speed-read.
“My wife gets mad because I have a stack of five or 10 books next to my bed all the time, and I’ll generally read a book a day,” he said. “And then I’ll reread the good ones.”
His recent favorite: a biography of Harry Truman. Schilling marveled over the life journey of Truman, from son of a farmer in Missouri to president who authorized two nuclear bombs to be dropped on Japan.
“Only in this country can you do that,” Schilling said. HIS GUN Yes, he’s carrying a pistol — a SIG Sauer P226.
“This country’s changing in a lot of ways that aren’t for the better,” Schilling said. “Our police officers are under siege. Our government has, I think, backed away from supporting them. And I have a right as a citizen of this country to defend my home and my family.”
Schilling said he was licensed to carry a firearm and started doing so about two years ago, although he first considered it in 2012 after a gunman opened fire at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., killing 12 people. Schilling said he was also moved by the killing of a French police officer by a terrorist in June.
“We had been to France a couple of months earlier, and my thought was, ‘If I was standing there, what would I have done, if I was with my family?’ ” he said. “So I’ve taken a bunch of classes, and I shoot quite a bit to stay proficient. It’s one of those things where I hope I’ll have forever and never need it.” HIS FAULTS “As a Christian, I’m telling you I’m deeply flawed,” Schilling said. “And that’s not OK, but that’s who I am.”
A registered independent, a proud conservative and a born-again Christian are ways Schilling self-identifies.
“It doesn’t mean I’ve always said the right things or done the right things,” he said. “But I think the fact that I want to please (God) pleases (God).”
Schilling volunteers that he became a born-again Christian in 1997, pulling over to the side of the road and reciting the Lord’s Prayer in a moment of revelation.
This serves as a segue for him to acknowledge his imperfections.
So let’s get to the things Schilling says he has done wrong — for starters, overseeing a failed video game company that took a $75 million loan guarantee from Rhode Island before the company went belly up.
Schilling said the state failed to deliver $26 million but that he accepts responsibility.
“At the end of the day, I was the CEO,” he said. “It falls on me. I can’t run away from that.” Anything else? “I make mistakes. I’ve said dumb things, but I’ve never done anything malicious to hurt anybody,” Schilling said. “Never inten- tionally, anyway. As a Christian, I’m trying to do the right thing, but I don’t always do it.”
He dismissed characterizations of him as racist and transphobic that dogged him after his controversial social media activity.
“I’ve never said the N-word in my life,” Schilling said. “I never got exposed to that until I went into professional baseball.
“I’m not a bully. I don’t talk mean to people. I don’t like to make people feel bad about themselves. I think that’s the weakest form of human behavior that we have.
“And some of my dearest friends are homosexual. They are the some of the greatest people I’ve ever known.” HIS MOUTH The words that tumble out of Schilling ’s mouth created controversy long before he went scorched-earth at ESPN.
“I was a general manager’s nightmare during my career, because I didn’t have a problem saying what I think a lot of guys wanted to say,” he said.
But what came out of his mouth became increasingly political, with Schilling noting, “Probably 9/11 jacked up my interest to a passionate level.”
He said the podcast/radio format was best suited for his commentary, because he didn’t specialize in the sound bite. But Saturday, he fired off these:
We’re talking about trying to wipe out terrorism, which is like trying to kill an ant farm with one stomp of the foot.”
I voted for Bill Clinton. Once. I didn’t know that he was the scumbag he was.”
Ownership and baseball, it’s an incredibly disgusting thing. They treat people out of uniform or coaches like (expletive) because they can.”
The fact that we’re more worried about giving immigrants access to Obamacare than we are about putting roofs over the heads of our veterans makes me sick to my stomach.”
I think my vote now is probably more against Clinton than for Trump. She can’t be our next president.”
To sum it all up, Tim Tebow was crucified, vilified for putting his Christianity in front of everybody to see. Colin Kapernick, they want to build a statue to him someday for a false narrative, for a lie.
“Black Lives Matter movement was founded on a lie. Michael Brown was a lie. ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ was a lie.
“And the disproportionate violence to blacks from police is a lie. It’s not true. Those are statistical lies that they’re kneeling for.”
Now, provided he gets his wife’s approval to pursue political office, Schilling will do what his mouth has always done — run.