| | |
|
Schilling Serves Noticeby Cameron on June 25 at 6:46PM | comments (0)
[ comments (0) ] [ BallHype ] The question is not whether he wants to or not. The question is whether he physically can.  That's the epistemological direction charted forward by Curt Schilling this morning during his weekly appearance on WEEI. By all accounts, most significantly the ones provided by his surgeons, Schilling's operation on Monday was an almost unequivocal success. His doctor's made it sound like the damage done to Schilling's joint was minor, that he should make a near-full recovery and, equally important, he could throw off a mound by next January. Knowing Schilling, and judging by the tenor of his comments this morning, Schilling will be tossing a baseball come September and October. He might even be working in significant long toss, and perhaps even a flat ground pepper game by November. Assuming his joints respond the way he anticipates, he almost certainly will try and take a mound in January. It's just the pitcher, and the competitor, that he is. It's at that point that the real questions begin, both for Schilling and the Sox. The Big Schill signed for a nice $8 million pay day this winter in part to stick with the Red Sox for legacy's sake. He's not an idiot, unlike some of his self-named band of brothers from 2004 who have since fled to pastures far more lucrative and farther south, tarnishing their Boston legacy in the process. No, Schilling understands how significant his place is in the city's sports lore, and, in fact, in it's historical trajectory overall. It's no coincidence that Boston has become the mecca for sports champions of the new century. If only the Patriots had been winning crowns, that wouldn't have been the case. Instead, the arrival of Schilling harkened a new era of constant competition among the city's franchises themselves, with a Red Sox organization openly modeling itself on the form of intelligent design popularized in the NFL by the Patriots, and with Danny Ainge's Celtics revival relying on the success shown by the town's other teams to prove it was possible to win a title in Boston. Truly, all those events start with Schilling. It was his arrival that helped the Red Sox turn the corner, and his gutsy performance in Game 6 of the ALCS -- and Game 2 of the World Series -- that officially turned the tide. It was his return from surgery and team-first mentality, beginning his return as a closer before eventually morphing into the starter who would clinch the AL Wild Card, that paved the way for the team's 2005 playoff spot. For all those reasons, and the fact that John Henry has more money than God, Schilling deserved his $8 million pay off, and the opportunity to ride into the sunset as a member of the Red Sox. The question now shifts to whether he'll take advantage of that chance, or whether he'll insist on one final return. That, of course, is where things would get dicey. The Sox rotation is already crowded, and that's even with the injuries that have befallen the starters this year. The emergence of Justin Masterson, step back last night against the Diamondbacks or not, as well as the arm strength of Bartolo Colon made Schilling an ancillary benefit, and now has made him completely non-essential for '08. While 2009 might present a different set of circumstances -- Colon will be a free agent, after all -- the continued development of Boston's young pitching means that the Sox might not want to grant a starting slot to Schilling, let alone a Schilling at far less than 100 percent. Such a determination, of course, is still ages away. The most telling part of Wednesday morning's interview was Schilling's own self-awareness of the limitations to come. Here's exactly what he said at one point on the Dennis and Callahan show: "It's what I do," he said. "It's what I've done my whole life. It's what I enjoy doing." There's the bottom line: "If I come out of rehab and I'm throwing 84 miles per hour, it's over." Whether he is or not, his career with the Red Sox, at least as a starter, probably is. Whether Sox fans want to admit it or not, that makes today, or perhaps the date of the surgery on Monday, a significant day in the historical timeline of the franchise. |
|
|
| ||