Curt Schilling: Frankenstein

Curt Schilling’s performance in game 6 for the Red Sox was the real nail in the Yankee’s coffin. I had a gut feeling of soothsaying certainty after the Sox, behind Schilling’s stunning performance, won another nail-biter 4-2 that game 7 would be a blow out – just ask my wife.

When Schilling, with blood seeping visibly through his sanitary sock, shut down the same team that had pounded him for 6 runs in three innings in game 1 because his ankle tendon injury inhibited his pitching motion, I KNEW the Yankees were doomed – just ask my wife.

What I didn’t know was the lengths Schilling and the Sox’s training staff went to to resurrect him for game 6:

With the team’s future increasingly dependent on Curt Schilling’s right leg, doctors decided to try an apparently unprecedented procedure to keep a tendon from slipping around in his ankle. But first, they wanted to test it out.

So they used a cadaver. No way to know if it was a Red Sox fan.

….The Red Sox training staff thought of various ways to keep the tendon in place. Special high-top shoes didn’t work, and they hit upon the idea of sewing skin in Schilling’s leg to the tissue underneath, creating a wall that would keep the tendon in place.

“It seems extreme. We couldn’t find a case of it ever being done before,” Epstein said. “It was the best way to allow him to have his normal mechanics.”

Schilling had three stitches put in at about 2 p.m. on Monday, about 90 minutes before he tested his ankle on the bullpen mound in Fenway Park.

“If it didn’t work, he’s in the same situation he was before,” manager Terry Francona said. “We went out to the bullpen, he did pretty well without it. … Schill kind of bought off on it, and they did it a day early to see if he could get used to it and let him get comfortable with it. And it certainly seemed to do the trick.”

Although there was some fluid and blood leaking through Schilling’s sock on Tuesday night, Epstein could see after the first pitch that Schilling was throwing like normal.

The sutures were taken out after the game to avoid infection; if Schilling pitches again, they would be put back in. Epstein said there was no problem repeating the procedure a couple of more times.

“We only have one more series,” he said. “People think it’s reasonable to do it a couple more times.” [AP]

I guess the Sox wanted it more.