Curt Schilling is blogging

I don’t care which baseball team you root for, if you have any interest in professional sports, you should take a look at Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s blog. His first posts are remarkable. My favorites so far:

• On baseball’s recent deal with DirecTV: “I don’t think there’s any doubt that we are still trying to pull ourselves out of the steroid scandal morass, only to have this latest legal situation crop up. Even with that scandal baseball has found a way to prosper, and at a point when fans were once again saying ‘Hey, you guys screwed up again, but we’re still here’, fans are given the shaft.”


• His tribute to former pitching coach John Vukovich is incredible. For me, it’s a combination of Schilling’s acknowledgement of Vuk’s role in his career, his position as a father figure, and his commitment to the game: in an era of so may athletes who are all about themselves, Schilling’s tribute is not just touching, it’s inspiring. While the entire piece is worth-while, a paragraph near the end is particularly striking: “There is no doubt in my mind that my career would have been over ten or more years ago without John Vukovich. I often tried to but there was no way I could ever repay him for his commitment to me and the devotion and love he showed me throughout our 15+ years together. John Vukovich was the very person my dad was referring to when he called someone, ‘good people.’ It was the highest compliment my dad could give. John was good people every day of his life, and the game and I will miss him greatly.” Wow. (Make sure to read his tribute for two great stories about Vuk. Priceless.)


• On how he feels in spring training: “Overall I felt great physically. The change up got results but I felt like crap throwing it. I threw 14 of them today, out of 60 pitches. Right now My split is in between horrific and terrible, so that’s something else to work on.”

My Mom had a chance to meet Curt Schilling while doing some charity work in Philadelphia. She talked about what a great guy he was, and after the 2004 season, it was hard not to admire the work ethic and commitment to his team. Seeing this side of him, though, it’s hard not to admire him as a man, an entrepreneur, a parent, and a writer. He’s the real deal.