Curt Schilling is entitled to stumble through his retirement shouting like the mad neighbor with flags in yard blaming the world’s trouble on every faith that is not his own. The constitution offers him this right. And Schilling seems nothing if not strict constitutionalist the way any ex-ballplayer looking for a tax break is a stickler for constitutional details.
But pour hate on social media long enough, and you’re bound to cross a line. And Tuesday afternoon Schilling seemed to understand how far he had overstepped. By then he had already looked at a graphic with a photograph of Adolf Hitler and a convoluted manipulation of unattributed data comparing Muslim extremists to Nazis at the start of world war two and thought this was worth sharing with the world.
And it wasn’t enough that when he shared this graphic on Twitter, he added a note on the top that read: “The math is staggering if you get to true #s,” even though the graphic had nothing to do with math but data that didn’t make much sense.
No, he had to do this while he was on assignment for ESPN covering the Little League World Series – an event that, when stripped of the adults, should be the least political of any in sports. Since ESPN is a paid LLWS rights-holder and Schilling, as one of its broadcasters, is essentially an official face of the games, this means he thought a tournament of 11- and 12-year-olds was the ideal forum to discuss Nazis and Muslim extremists.
Last year during the Little League World Series we had the inspiration of Mo’ne Davis, a girl with a fastball as vicious as that of any boy. This year we get Curt Schilling and Adolf Hitler.
ESPN pulled Schilling of its telecast and suspended him. He pulled down the tweet and apologized on the same Twitter account of 128,000 followers on which he shared Hitler and “math”. But the damage had been done. The tweet already burned on the internet, possibly along with his broadcasting career.
What is most amazing about what happened Tuesday is that apparently no one had told Schilling to be careful of how he represented himself and his network on social media. It’s one thing to share political beliefs. It’s another to parse the meaning behind each color on the Confederate flag and mock other religions while broadcasting children’s baseball games.
Baseball has rarely seen a big-game pitcher like Schilling. He was his best when the pressure burned the hottest, winning in the playoffs and the World Series. He will forever be remembered for winning Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series with surgically repaired tendons and blood dripping down his sock. He had 216 victories in his career and a 3.46 ERA. These numbers should someday get him into the Hall of Fame.
But there are these other moments from Schilling that have gone far to ruin everything he built on the field. Like this January, when he told a radio show in Boston that John Smoltz was elected to the Hall of Fame over him because Smoltz was a Democrat and he was a Republican. This despite evidence that Smoltz is a Republican as well, and presented a more compelling statistical resumé. (Disclosure: I voted for both Schilling and Smoltz).
There, too, was his video game company, 38 Studios, for whom he wrangled $75m from Rhode Island to move his offices there, despite his apparent dislike for big government. Less than two years later, the company shut down and everybody lost their job.
“No hiding, my mistake,” he said on Twitter about his Muslims and Hitler posting.
“I understand and accept my suspension,” he later tweeted. “100% my fault. Bad choices have bad consequences and this was a bad decision in every way on my part.”
His contrition seemed genuine. Perhaps in crashing through his retirement he grasped something. In many ways there is a lot to respect about Schilling. He has raised good money for serious causes like ALS research. He has battled throat cancer. He had a fantastic career.
But there is also a trail of broken baseball relationships, animosity from ex-teammates, a state that feels swindled, former employees dumped from their jobs and now Hitler. Maybe Tuesday will be an awakening for Schilling.
It is fine to have your political beliefs, of course. But at some point the pitcher who was his best in the biggest games needs to understand he is not Donald Trump. He’s not running for office; he’s broadcasting baseball. There is a line between politics and hate. On Tuesday Schilling stumbled hard as he crossed it.
