BOSTON -- Bloody sock or painted fake?
Nothing but Curt Schilling's blood was seeping through his socks in the 2004 postseason, current and former Red Sox said Thursday after a rumor resurfaced that the pitcher milked his injury for drama while helping Boston end its 86-year title drought.
On Wednesday, Baltimore announcer Gary Thorne said during his broadcast of the Red Sox-Orioles game that Boston backup catcher Doug Mirabelli admitted it was a hoax.
"It was painted," Thorne said. "Doug Mirabelli confessed up to it after. It was all for PR."
But Mirabelli denied ever talking to Thorne, telling the Boston Globe that Thorne's comment was "a straight lie."
"I never said that," Mirabelli told the paper. "I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood."
Red Sox president Larry Lucchino said the team "would not dignify these insinuations with extensive comment ... other than to remind everyone that we remain steadfastly proud of the courageous efforts by a seriously injured Curt Schilling -- efforts that helped lead the Red Sox to the 2004 World Series championship."
After an ankle injury hampered Schilling in Game 1 of the '04 AL championship series against New York, team doctors jury-rigged a tendon in his right ankle to keep it from flopping around. With blood seeping through his sock, the pitcher came back in Game 6 to beat the Yankees.
The Red Sox completed an unprecedented comeback from an 0-3 deficit to reach the World Series, and team doctor Bill Morgan repeated the procedure before Schilling's Game 2 start against St. Louis. Boston beat the Cardinals en route to a four-game sweep and its first world championship since 1918.
No stranger to the spotlight, Schilling is not afraid to say or do things that court controversy. The suggestion that he faked the injury to get attention has cropped up before, including a GQ magazine article that cited an anonymous Red Sox player as its source.
Schilling tried to settle things in his own blog this spring when a reader asked him to respond to claims by Yankee fans that the red stains were ketchup.
"Needless to say it was blood, my blood, and it was coming from the sutures in my ankle," Schilling wrote in a March 17 Q&A. "You're either stupid or bitter if you think otherwise."
Morgan, the doctor who performed the experimental procedure, said the accusation was "hard to fathom."
