Curt Schilling Doesn't Believe ESPN's Excuse For Cutting Bloody Sock Performance From Documentary
By Michael Hurley, CBS Boston
BOSTON (CBS) -- Something awfully fishy went down at ESPN over the weekend. The network claims that nothing strange was afoot, but Curt Schilling believes that ESPN is simply telling lies.
The issue involved a re-airing of the 30 For 30 documentary, "Four Days In October," which captured the historic comeback from a 3-0 series deficit by the Red Sox over the Yankees in the 2004 postseason.
Arguably the biggest story from that comeback, aside from David Ortiz's late-inning heroics, was Curt Schilling and his bloody sock. That's the same Curt Schilling who was fired by ESPN last month for sharing inappropriate memes on social media.
And in this particular re-airing of the documentary, Schilling's bloody sock game was curiously cut from the film.
It was an omission that did not go unnoticed, causing quite a stir on Twitter from viewers who noticed. And it ultimately forced the network to explain itself.
"When a live event runs long, it's standard procedure to shorten a taped program that follows," ESPN said in a statement. "In this case, we needed to edit out one of the film's four segments to account for the extra length of the softball game."
On one level, it makes tremendous sense. Ortiz's Game 4 home run and Game 5 walk-off single can't be cut from the story. Neither can Dave Roberts' Game 4 steal. Game 7 also can't be cut -- that's the ending. So, if one were to be forced to make a cut, it would be the moderately less dramatic Game 6.
Yet, given the recent breakup between Schilling and ESPN, it simply did not look like standard protocol was put into place.
Schilling, for one, did not buy the explanation. He added the hashtag "ESPN LIES" to his Twitter profile, and he fought back against the network (appropriately) on Twitter. He sarcastically claimed he "didn't actually have anything to do" with earning the 2004 World Series ring, he told Barstool Sports' Dave Portnoy that he'd "proudly" wear an "ESPN Lies" shirt on TV, and he also claimed ESPN was merely trying to fire back at the opinionated former pitcher for embarrassing the network's executives.
"Please don't make me victim," Schilling tweeted. "You saw it, I lived it, still got the ring. This is what happens when you embarrass powerful people. And nothing more. It's why we are where we are at as a people and as a nation. Time to change that."
Perhaps the issue of cutting some clips out of a documentary from 2010 about baseball games in 2004 is not quite reflective of grand societal issues, but, as always, at least Schilling has let his feelings be known.
You can email Michael Hurley or find him on Twitter @michaelFhurley.