I think if you ask most professional athletes, they would tell you that they'd rather end their careers hoisting a championship trophy than they would on an operating room gurney.
Oddly enough, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling may do both.
Schilling this week underwent a surgical procedure on his ailing right shoulder, an operation that could very well end his career. Schilling all but admitted as much during an interview late last week with a Boston radio station, where he announced that he would be going under the knife, ending his prospects for pitching for this year—and possibly forever.
"It's entirely possible I've thrown my last pitch," the 41-year-old hurler told the Dennis and Callahan Show on WEEI. "And if I do come back, it probably wouldn't be for a full season next year. It would likely be something that would happen to the mid-to-late part of the year."
If he doesn't come back, Schilling will have gone out a winner, because the last time we saw him take the ball, he was helping the Red Sox win their second championship in four seasons. It's safe to say they would never have won that title without Schilling's dominant post-season performance, which all but cemented his legacy as one of the greatest pressure pitchers of all time.
That performance is even more impressive now that we know the kind of pain the guy was dealing with. And while it may not have been debilitating, it was clearly significant enough to force a major adjustment in Schilling's pitching style. A one-time power pitcher who could cut batters down with pure heat, Schilling was forced by necessity to become a finesse pitcher, relying more on curves, cutters and sliders to get the job done.
It's possible that change contributed to the shoulder problems that may now end his career, and there will, I'm sure, also be speculation that the Red Sox decision to try and rehab the shoulder rather than go with surgery may have further damaged the arm. Schilling made no secret of his desire to go under the knife, which led to a brief but ugly battle of words in the media between Schilling and Red Sox management.
The acrimony has since been replaced by what sounds like an admission that Schilling's days in a Red Sox uniform may be all but over.
"When we were sitting in his living room back in 2003, we talked to him about a lot of things, like him coming here and helping us win a World Series and leading a pitching rotation," Red Sox General Manager Theo Epstein said. "Those things came true and then some, so he certainly lived up to his end of the bargain."
"The one thing that Schill always did was take the ball every five days, and his ability to do that was unbelievable," said Red Sox Manager Terry Francona. "That stuff with the sock wasn't fake. This guy would pitch, and he pitched some awfully big games."
The bloody sock incident in 2004 is already legendary, and is cemented in the minds of anyone who's ever been a Red Sox fan. But it seems his legacy is the furthest thing from Schilling's mind right now.
"Right now, I just want the pain to go away," Schilling said. "That's what this surgery is about. I'll worry about the rest of it later."
If he's smart, the next pitch Schilling throws will be to his son in his back yard, because from where I sit, this guy's got nothing left to prove.
