Schilling Speaks, And So Does the $8MM

Whenever Curt Schilling speaks - and since he launched 38pitches.com last spring, he's been speaking almost TOO much - his personal assessment and analysis has required a heavy dose of translation. Well, maybe translation isn't the word. Skepticism might be more appropriate.

However you want to caste it, Schilling's long-form, detail-intensive introspection occasionally has given us a nice boost of factual clarity. Amazingly, that's the case again with his current shoulder injury.

In an entry curtly (get it?) titled "My shoulder" which was posted late last night, Schilling makes it clear that the disagreement that emerged between his doctor - Craig Morgan, the man who performed surgery on his shoulder early in his career - and the Sox medical staff had pushed Morgan and NOT the Sox docs to argue for surgery. As Morgan told the AP in an interview this afternoon, he advocated for a surgical repair for the Big Schill's shoulder because he felt it provided the only possibility for a return to the mound for the ace. The actual quote is even a bit more startling:

"I think his chance of coming back to pitching with rehab or a conservative approach is zero," Dr. Craig Morgan said Friday in telephone interview with The Associated Press. "He might not come back after surgery, either. However, if the surgery is successful, he should be fully rehabbed by about All-Star break."

That's right, Morgan, a man who claims he knows Schilling's shoulder better than "any man on this earth" says the man has no shot at coming back after only a rehab stint. That, of course, is diametrically at odds with the advice from Boston's medical staff, which recommended he combine rest and, eventually, aggressive rehab to speed his return.

Why would Boston want a rehab approach? That's easy: They know that Schilling is so hyper-competitive that once he starts training he'll find a way to pitch. That, if anything, has been deftly reinforced by the pure existence of this injury. The fact that the 41-year old Schilling is still dealing with structural shoulder issues is all but definitive proof that he was pitching with a fraying cuff down the stretch - and in the playoffs - last season. He won an ALDS game in Anaheim, a key ALCS game and a World Series game, for the second time since he showed up in Boston, with a severe medical condition that would sideline almost any other pitcher.

Any other pitcher like, say, Roger Clemens.

Isn't it interesting that on a day when the drug allegations surrounding Clemens officially reached tailspin proportions -- reports are now indicating that his former trainer Brian McNamee injected his wife in preparation for a Sports Illustrated photo shoot - we also learn that Schilling was putting himself through significantly more pain than we were giving him credit for. It's a fascinating juxtaposition, given that the Sox were o-fer in the title department with the Rocket and are 2-for-4 with Big Schill, who is one of only a handful of players truly above steroid suspicion.

That being said, no one, Schilling included, is above putting themselves through a little extra grief to lock up a big paycheck. Particularly when the paycheck in question contains six zeroes. The reports that are leaking out indicate that the Sox would have been able to void Schilling's deal if he spurned their recommended rehab approach for surgery. While such a move might have increased his chance of eventually pitching again - at least according to Morgan - such a return almost certainly would have come with a greatly diminished price tag. $8 million guaranteed? No way. And pitching for the Red Sox, the organization he's branded himself, in a place where he wants to cement a historic legacy? Not a chance. And that's assuming he ever COULD make it back. It's understandable that the Sox would think he's just too old to count on another comeback.

So instead, Schilling will gut it up, try to come back at the midseason point and effectively emerge as an experienced trade deadline addition. Will he make it back successfully? That's anyone's guess. All Red Sox fans can do is hope for the best and now that, if his history is any indication, there's a decent chance that Schilling will be on the mound late in the '08 season. The only question is whether he'll be doing it on cortizone shots, heavy doses of lidocaine or perhaps, missing an entire arm and taking the Jim Abbott experience one step farther down the line.

Of course, if you're looking for a humorous take on this whole Boston debacle, emyrealenvirons is a much better place for it today. The battle of medical schools, in particular, is a stroke of genius.

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