Curt Schilling’s Tree Fort
Curt Schilling has a club- and you’re not invited!
Unless your name is Rob Bradford (Herald), Steve Buckley (Herald), Sean McAdam (ProJo), Jeff Goldberg (Hartford Courant), Dan Roche (CBS-TV 4), or Don Orsillo (NESN), you were not invited to Curt’s tea party/press conference yesterday. Apparently, yesterday Curt went around the Sox clubhouse and tapped those select few on the shoulders and invited them to a very special super top secret press conference (of sorts) at a very special super top secret location.
Notably absent from that list: anyone from the Boston Globe, which is not really a surprise given that Dan Shaughnessy posted a typical CHB article on Sunday, ripping Schilling as per usual. That, in turn, meant Gordon Edes had to cover the story for the Globe without having actually been invited to the party (presumably he had to write his report using the NESN video). It can’t be a coincidence that one day after CHB regurgitated his tired old “Schilling sucks” routine, Curt shut he and all of his Globe colleagues out from participating in his first press conference since the injury announcement.
Rob Bradford, one of the chosen ones, has an excellent recap/transcript of all of Schill’s thoughts- and I’ve got that NESN video after the jump.
Did he put out a sign that said “No Girls Allowed” (or “No Globe Allowed”)?
I think not inviting the Globe was totally fair… if they’re going to publish the crap that CHB churns out, they have to accept the consequences, in this case, restricted access at the player’s discretion. That being said, I feel bad for Gordon. Can you imagine having CHB as a coworker?
Exactly. I think Curt is totally justified in shutting them out for a (non-official) press briefing if he feels like it — since they continue to publish CHB’s rantings about him every week. But I also agree that I feel sorry for Gordon Edes and Amalie Benjamin (both of whom I adore) and the rest of the Globe crew, who are roped in with CHB through no fault of their own.
I’m totally with you Texy. Unfortunately Amalie, Gordo and Nick Cafardo get lumped into the Globe stuff.
I’m sure he may have wanted to invite them but he had to make his point.
Yep- Nicky Nick Cafardo is another one. Love him, too.
OK, so that’s all about the delivery mechanism, but what about the content? I know he can…um, overcommunicate sometimes, but I’m inclined to take him at face value here. Agree? Or am I being too gullible?
Paging Margaret… she has a TON of actual real-life medical knowledge, and is way smarter than me on the science behind what Schill’s saying.
I will say this: Curt believes that Dr. Morgan’s opinion is the right one. He doesn’t at all appear to be trying to game the Sox or bilk the ownership out of money. He really believes Morgan’s diagnosis. Now whether Morgan’s recommendation is correct is another matter entirely…
Yeah, I meant that it seems to me that Curt’s being genuine. In fact, God help me, and inflated ego that he is, I usually feel that Curt’s being genuine, even if he does come off as auditioning for a spot on Mt. Rushmore.
For some reason I imagine them all in feather boas and flowered hats talking and gossiping about the team. And them all getting special invitations. And this is cracking me up right now. He did have a good pick of guys to join him though. Bradford and McAdam are two of my favorite writers and Dan Roche is always amusing on WBZ(speaking of which, I hope they do a 3rd annual Cookie Off)
So here’s what I wrote to TG about the whole thing. I’ve worked with orthopods in the past, and wow… anyway, its long, but it might put some stuff in perspective.
“Curt seems to be forgetting that there are just as many differences between physicians as there are between ballplayers.
He’s said he prefers Dr. Morgan’s approach. This doesn’t surprise me in the least: Curt is an aggressive ballplayer, and he identifies with a surgeon who likes to get in there and FIX THE PROBLEM, just like he likes to get on the mound and GET THE WIN. I know many orthopedic surgeons like this.
And the truth is, you can ALWAYS operate. Always. But it doesn’t mean it is going to solve the problem.
Surgery is a risky undertaking, no matter what the body part. If that shoulder has been cut up a bunch of times in the past, it will be a messier surgery each time they go in… Surgery isn’t just “go in, throw some stitches, close up”–it is very complicated, especially if the details of the diagnosis are unclear going in.
Unlike rehab, there’s a chance Curt could come out of surgery with a shoulder in worse shape than when he went in: a misstep, a repair that doesn’t quite hold as well as they would like, or just a bad estimation of how the joint would move during the surgery could leave it in terrible shape.
Orthopedic surgeons are not known for their recommendations not to do surgery. They love surgery. It’s their life. They love to cut. So when two orthopedic surgeons are saying, “don’t operate”, that would mean something to me, even if it meant going against my impulse to get in there and fix it.
None of the doctors advising Curt and the Sox are wrong. Not a single one. But like the difference between players’ stances at the plate, they’re going to have different ways of approaching a problem. Surgery isn’t always the answer…
In any case, I think there’s a chance that what the Red Sox don’t want to say is that surgery is not going to be able to fix him completely, that the damage is too extensive… In fact, it has been said that surgery or rehab, after this kind of injury, people really only regain 70% of their strength there– it is possible he wants the surgery in order to have a functional arm in the future… but surgery doesn’t mean he can pitch.
That being said, the procedure they recommend–a subpectoral biceps tenodesis–is pretty reasonable and not hugely high-risk or intrusive in my mind. If you want an in-depth explanation of what is going on, I’d be happy to provide it.
If I was on that medical team, which I am obviously not, I would say they should do an arthroscopy of the shoulder to really see what’s going on before mucking around. In fact, I’m a little surprised they haven’t.
I also would stop putting it between 3 doctors and open it up to more, probably get a case conference going with Morgan, the team docs, the Sox FO, and some guys from New England Baptist, the Brigham, other hospitals, maybe other teams/sports, that sort of thing. Actually pool some brainpower and come up with a solution–I have a hard time believing the choice is a clean-cut surgery or rehab.”
Like I said, I can give more details on the medical stuff if people are interested.
I like the idea of the ‘medical team’ approach but I think they’re abiding strictly by the rules of the CBA which calls for a single tie-breaker doctor in cases like these.
re: Globe Exclusion, I really like Amalie and Cafardo especially, and I do like some of the things CHB writes (that are strictly and objectively baseball and not at all subjective or about Schilling). And I know Steve Buckley. I like him, too.