Schilling ready to give Boston another title

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — On a picture-perfect morning under a cloudless sky, Curt Schilling stretches, plays long toss and does fielding drills. But when his Boston Red Sox pitching mates do sprints, his famously injured right ankle puts him on the sideline.
The running is probably the last hurdle," Schilling says. "Eventually, I will be able to run uninhibited. I measure my progress in weeks. ... Six weeks ago, I wouldn't have imagined being here."Schilling, 38, whose mangled ankle and bloodied socks became folklore in the Red Sox's history-making World Series championship last October, hopes to be ready to pitch when the Red Sox open the season April 3 in the Bronx against the New York Yankees and left-hander Randy Johnson, Schilling's former teammate with the Arizona Diamondbacks.
"What's not to look forward to?" Schilling asks. "It's my target. It's the ultimate baseball challenge, going against the best pitcher in the game at Yankee Stadium."

Schilling, who led the American League with 21 wins last season, did the unfathomable in his final two postseason starts.

With his floppy ankle tendon stabilized with sutures — a procedure that had only been tested on a cadaver — Schilling went out and beat the Yankees 4-2 in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series as blood seeped into his sock. Then, before Game 2 of the World Series, the procedure was repeated and he beat the St. Louis Cardinals to give Boston a two-games-to-zero lead en route to ending the Curse of the Bambino with the Red Sox's first World Series title since 1918.

The sock from the World Series is in the Hall of Fame in an exhibit that includes jerseys from Derek Lowe and David Ortiz, caps from Pedro Martinez and Johnny Damon and a bat from Manny Ramirez.

Where's the other sock?

"I threw it away," Schilling said. "The clubhouse guy at Yankee Stadium probably has it."

Unquestioned ace

Schilling underwent a three-hour surgery Nov. 9 to return the dislocated tendon to its proper position and reconstruct the tendon sheath. Then Schilling, sitting in a wheelchair back home in Phoenix, watched as the Red Sox's front office reconstructed the pitching staff.

Ace pitcher Pedro Martinez went to the New York Mets, and Derek Lowe, who won three series-clinching games in the postseason, joined the Los Angeles Dodgers.

That leaves Schilling as the undisputed ace in a rotation that has added lefty David Wells and right-handers Wade Miller and Matt Clement to holdovers Tim Wakefield and Bronson Arroyo.

"I'm not worried about pitching Curt in (the opener) — if that happens, it is a bonus," Red Sox catcher Jason Varitek said. "The main thing is we need Curt healthy for the entire season, not just the opener. He was hurting pretty much all year, not just during the playoffs."

Schilling wasn't surprised Martinez went to the Mets for a bigger contract. He also thinks Martinez no longer wanted to pitch in the same rotation as him.

"That was obvious at the end," Schilling said. "Not while it was happening, but I guess if you look at what he said afterward, it was obvious it wasn't as fun for him as it was for me.

"When the playoffs came and he made the comment about somebody having to have a lot of guts to come up and tell him he wasn't going to pitch Game 1. That kind of told me where we were at."

Schilling spent seven weeks in a wheelchair. His ankle rehabilitation lasted from 8:30 a.m. until 1:15 p.m. each day at Athletes' Performance in Tempe, Ariz., a clinic that specializes in training pro athletes. Specialist Craig Friedman says he held court each day and told baseball stories, and that helped him beat the mental drain of rehabilitation.

"It's painful," Friedman says. "The progress is slow. You have a good day and then the next day, the ankle is sore. There are eye-openers. An athlete has to trust in the process. And, while he didn't want to be hurt, he knew it was part of the game."

No rift with Big Unit

After a blur of an offseason, Schilling hopes he will be ready to face Johnson on opening night.

The pitchers, who were co-MVPs in the 2001 World Series when Arizona beat the Yankees, live a couple of minutes apart and attend the same church in Scottsdale.

Schilling and Johnson don't like that the media portray them as rivals who don't like each other.

The two say their workout schedules and families — each has four kids — keep them from doing too much together. They talked several times on the telephone during the offseason.

Johnson called Schilling to congratulate him on winning the World Series and to get updates on his ankle. Schilling called Johnson and welcomed him to the AL East and says Johnson will electrify New York.

Certainly, they have a professional relationship with mountains of respect.

"I learned a lot about pitching when I was a teammate of Curt's," Johnson says. "They (the media) like to say that we don't like each other, but nothing is ever going to come between us."

Schilling says Johnson is going to do well with the Yankees. He had hoped that Johnson might wind up with the Red Sox but said he knew Johnson was going to make the best decision for his family.

"I wish he would have gone somewhere else, but (Yankees owner) George (Steinbrenner) is going to stop at nothing to get the players he wants," Schilling says. "That's one of the pluses of being a Yankees fan."

Even though Schilling was across the country for a Red Sox fans' celebration, he got his taste. A few days before Christmas, Schilling was running an errand for his wife at a bicycle shop. There was a post office nearby.

He bumped into a man who was carrying a poster-size print of The Boston Globe newspaper that had a headline that read, "FINALLY." The man was sending it off as a Christmas present when he saw Schilling and started to get animated.

"He saw me, and said, 'Oh my gosh,' " says Schilling, who autographed the poster.

His lasting memory of the World Series was of closer Keith Foulke getting the final out in Game 4 at St. Louis' Busch Stadium: "With that vision, we were always winning. He was my MVP. Foulke put the hammer down for us in eight straight games."

During the offseason, Schilling tried to comprehend what a World Series title meant for Red Sox fans.

He read a Sports Illustrated story about the thousands of letters the club received from fans. There were thank-you letters from soldiers in Iraq and stories about how people had recognized the Red Sox in obituaries and eulogies.

People wrote in asking if they could get married on the Fenway Park mound.

And, there was the story of Virginia Muise, 111, of New Hampshire, and Fred Hale, 113, of Syracuse, N.Y., who were lifelong Red Sox fans and died a few weeks after the team won the Series.

Outside the Red Sox clubhouse, Schilling, who has "Whatever it Takes" inscribed under the bill of his cap, is reminded again of the accomplishment as dozens of fans reach out for an autograph. Some fans wear shirts that read, "Now I Can Die in Peace," and thank Schilling for last season.

Red Sox fans have a history of "agony, despair and failure," and yet they never stop loving their team, Schilling says, "It's drastically different. It's unprecedented."

USA Today
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schilling doesn't realize that he plays for a jinxed team and it's going to take another 90 years to win a world series.and they pitchers are smart guys:lolBIG:
 

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