From the first day he put on the Red Sox uniform and proclaimed that he hated the Yankees, Curt Schilling has had a special place in Boston sports lore.
Schilling announced his retirement Monday on his blog, 38pitches.com, and will forever be remembered as a warrior and a winner.
The Bloody Sock Game is one of the greatest and gutsiest performances in baseball and sports history.
Without Schilling, the Red Sox definitely don't win the World Series in 2004 and likely don't win it in '07 either.
In his final Major League Game, he allowed 1 run in 5 1/3 innings to get the win in Game 2 of the Red Sox' 4-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies in the 2007 World Series.
His numbers speak for themselves -- 216 career wins and a 3.46 ERA over 21 seasons. But where Schill really left his mark was in the playoffs.
In four of the five times his teams made the playoffs they advanced all the way to the world series, winning it three times. His 11-2 postseason record is the best all-time and his 2.23 ERA in 133.1 innings is pretty damn good too.
He and Randy Johnson were co-MVPs of the 2001 series when the Diamondbacks beat the Yankees in seven games. Schilling started Games 1, 4 and 7, pitching at least 7 innings in all three games, with at least 8 strikeouts in each outing and allowed 1, 1 and 2 runs, respectively, in the three games.
As we all know, Schilling loved to talk (and hear himself talk), but he always backed it up. He was 4-0 in five "win-or-go-home" playoff games.
He said he was going to bring a championship to Boston when he got here and he did. Even though he doesn't have the 300 wins that pitchers usually need to get an automatic pass to the Hall of Fame, his quality of wins and importance to his teams should get him to Cooperstown.
Hopefully when that day comes, he'll be enshrined wearing a Red Sox cap.
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