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About last night
Curt Schilling today expounded upon remarks he made after last night’s game that seemingly shed a sliver of doubt about whether he was planning on returning to the team next season.
After earning his 15th win last night in what was his final start of a rocky 2006 for the Sox, Schilling made a comment that lifted some eyebrows: “If I come back next year, I know that the offseason will be the hardest offseason of my career…”
If?
In his weekly appearance on Boston sports radio WEEI’s Dennis and Callahan show this morning, Schilling apologized for the “slip up” and assured listeners that his comment did not mean he has decided to hang up his cleats.
“The last thing I would ever allow to happen would be for something like this, that might have been a decision I made, to go public before I talked to my wife,” Schilling said, “and Shonda and I have not talked at any length about this, nor do we plan to in the near future. I have a contract with the Red Sox for next year. I know that Woodward and Bernstein [WEEI’s Gerry Callahan and John Meterparel] here in the office think that I’m firing a shot across the bow at somebody but that’s not the case. That’s not something I would do and if I was going to do that I would have come out and said those exact words rather than trying to beat around the bush.”
Schilling, who will turn 40 in November, has consistently said that next season would be his last. The Sox ace also said he expects the team to make a big splash this offseason.
“I just don’t envision a scenario in which John Henry allows Theo Epstein to field a team that can’t win a World Series, and Mr. [Tom] Werner included,” Schilling said this morning. “I don’t see that happening. I don’t see the possibility ... when you’re dealing from the financial standpoint that this team deals from, everything’s a possibility, anybody’s a possibility. And I think that will be the case going into this winter.”
The pitcher also spoke about what drives him to return for one last season and what it would take to get him prepared for his fourth year in Boston.
"I'm not coming back here for the paycheck, on the priority list, that would be on the bottom,” he said. “I'm not coming back here to compete, because all I need to do is show up to compete. I'm coming back here to be the best. And to do that in my situation physically and mentally is going to take a lot more this winter than it's ever taken me before because this year was such an incredibly tumultuous season for me on a personal and on a team level, even more so. I certainly didn't expect to be shooting for win No. 15 in late September. That's an indicator to me personally how frustrating the season was."
