Former Major League pitcher turned walking Pepe the Frog Curt Schilling is back in the news, and frankly, we couldn't be happier about it.On Wednesday, Theo Epstein, the patron saint of loser baseball franchises, appeared on the Pardon My Take podcast, where he shared a wonderful story about his time as Boston Red Sox general manager. In 2003, Schilling and the Red Sox agreed to a three-year contract extension following a weird process that included Schilldog updating reporters via interviews on his front lawn and, important for our purposes here, negotiating on behalf of himself.Some of the discussions actually occurred in Schilling's home, which is also where the deal was actually finalized. Here is Epstein on the show, who also called Schilling "unique."Epstein: So we were negotiating back and forth. He had fired his agent and he was representing himself. So, we're negotiating a contract extension back and forth.Pardon My Take: That's a mismatch.Epstein: Yeah, that's what I thought. So I thought we were doing pretty well in the negotiations and then we reach a deal, we're happy with it, and we go back to print it out in his little home office. And so we're using his computer and his printer to print it out and there on his desk is a well-worn, dog-eared copy of the book 'Negotiating for Dummies'. And that's what he was using, every time he was pretending to go to the bathroom, he was running back and looking at that book…. I shit you not.This is so entirely plausible, it has to be true. Can't you just see Schilling—a guy who thinks he'd be in the Hall of Fame if only he said President Trump should get lynched instead of journalists—trying to Cliffs Notes his way through a high-stakes contract negotiation? Of course you can. Schilling, naturally, denies that he used the book, and instead claims it was a gag gift from his attorney. Sure it was, Curt. Sure it was.Epstein also came dangerously close to implying that Schilling's wife, Shonda, gave assistant GM Jed Hoyer food poisoning when she cooked for them later on in the trip. Hoyer apparently puked all over his hotel room after the meal. Schilling did not dispute this portion of the podcast.[SI]
Advertisement