Curt Schilling, no. 38 (What you didn't know that?)

Birth Date: November 14, 1966 in Anchorage, AK

Height/Weight: 6'5", 235 lb. (probably less in the spring, though)

College: Yavapai Junior College

Contract: 1 year at $8 million

Ah, Curt. It's hard to just talk stats on the guy. I suppose it's that there's nothing cut and dry about Curt Schilling. It's not: here are his stats and here he is as a person, it's all tangled up in one ball of emotion. Probably because he was portrayed as our saviour before he came here and then managed to live up to the hype. He did a Ford commercial (it must have been January/February 2004) where he was hitch hiking along a southwestern-y road (deserts and mesas in the background) and he was turning down lifts (until the guy in the Ford truck came along) with a line like "No, thanks. I'm going to Boston to break an eighty-six year old curse." It's burned into my memory and maybe he bought into the hype a little bit, I don't know.

Anyway, last season he managed to put up a win-loss ratio of 9 to 8. His Earned Run Average (3.87) is above average, as is his Walks and Hits per Innings Pitched (1.245). He was a good pitcher last season. His fast ball might have slowed down a bit but he still has amazing control; he faced 633 batters last season and walked under 4% of them (23). He gave up 21 home runs but managed to strike out 101 batters. And he continued to be a post season monster-god (except for against Cleveland.)

I suppose that the way I feel about Curt Schilling can best be exemplified by the fact that prior to today, I had only one photograph of him saved on my computer (I am now the proud saver of 3 Schilling photos.) There are a bunch where he is incidental but there was only one picture of him solo. He's there, you know he's there, there's no chance of you forgetting that he's there, but sometimes you wish that he would just fade into the background a little bit.

It's not that I don't like Schilling. It's just that I hate watching him pitch. What with the sweating, and the brow wiping, and the hat adjusting, and the peering in like he can't quite make out the sign, he just seems nervous when he's on the mound. And empathetic soul that I am, he makes me nervous; every strike is a miracle and every hit was absolutely expected. It's not the way to enjoy a baseball game.

And yes, his moral compass and general pomposity can be grating. He has preachy tendencies. He could use an upgrade to his internal editor (and an external editor for his blog wouldn't be a bad investment.) And, on principle, I generally dislike it when people give their children cutesy names. But he does a lot of good; he's a very charitable guy.

I think if he manages to lose the weight and get back in shape (and it looks like he's already making progress), then he'll still be a force to be reckoned with in 2008, especially if he can avoid injury again.