Back in 2002, a pre-Sox Curt Schilling gave a very interesting interview to Maxim magazine. Curt and Maxim? 2008 Curt would probably keel over and/or die before talking to Maxim. Not only was 2002 Curt loose enough to speak with a lad's mag, 2002 Curt was also loose enough to talk about asshole baseball players (Barry Bonds), beaning guys with a pitch, his dislike for Mitch Williams, Lenny Dykstra's after-hours habits, his inability to stop chewing tobacco and, of course, slumpbusters. He also dropped a couple of M-F bombs along the way -- how very Josh Beckett of him!

I quoted a small piece of the article the other day, but thought I'd go ahead and post the full article here-- because it's chock-full of gems. 2002 Curt deserves to be heard.

Full article after the jump...

Armed and Dangerous

World Series hero and co-MVP pitcher Curt Schilling says he's not afraid to piss people off. So we went 10 rounds with him and let him prove it.

By Alan Schwarz, Maxim magazine

Curt Schilling's mouth may get him killed one day. But he keeps on talking. Hell, when you have a 95 mph fastball and the cojones to aim it at a guy's neck, you can say whatever you want. Schilling, the Arizona Diamondbacks' ace, holds the National League record for most strikeouts in a single season by a righty and mowed down the mighty Yankees three times in last year's World Series. Who's going to shut him up?

Not Deion Sanders, whom in 1997 Schilling called "a glorified flag football player"--after throwing a pitch at his head. Not his 26-year-old former teammate Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams, whom Schilling humiliated by attending a postgame press conference wearing an I SURVIVED WATCHING MITCH PITCH button. And certainly not the future Hall of Famers he's insulted or the league officials who have fined him for his loudmouth ways.

But now that the 35-year-old Alaska native has become a bona fide superstar, we worried that he might be getting soft. Had the loose-lipped fireballer finally acquired a muzzle? We decided to find out with 10 rounds of questions aimed straight at Curt Schilling's gut. Ding! Ding! Ding!

ROUND 1: Is it true you once called Barry Bonds "the biggest asshole to ever play the game"?

Yeah. And afterward a lot of players on his team said to me, "Why is everyone motherfucking you for saying the truth?" But I haven't thought a lot about him since. We met at last year's All-Star Game and exchanged words--kind words--for the first time in a long time.

ROUND 2: Speaking of assholes, what did you think of the way Roger Clemens beaned Mike Piazza a couple of years back?

As a pitcher I loved it. It was awesome. Roger just tried to knock him on his ass and the ball got away from him. That's what guys did in the '70s and '80s, when Roger was learning the game. You knocked guys on their ass.

Even Roger throwing the broken bat at Mike in the World Series didn't bother me. That was pure adrenaline. You've just shattered the guy's bat, you've embarrassed him--hitters don't like to be embarrassed--he's fired up, it's the World Series. Roger did exactly what he should have done.

ROUND 3: So you admit to throwing at guys?

Sure. If I'm really trying to hit a guy, I'll aim for the armpit right below the rib cage. It's an impossible spot to get out of the way. But I'll throw above a guy's shoulders and inside, too. If you don't knock a guy on his ass or break his bat when you throw inside, you've done nothing. If the guy can't handle that, tough shit. This is the big leagues.

ROUND 4: Would you knock some sense into commissioner Bud Selig if you had the chance?

Let's just say baseball is a totally rudderless ship right now. Just 48 hours after the greatest World Series in history, the commissioner is talking contraction! No one can be that stupid. Somebody sitting in the commissioner's office actually said, "This is the perfect time to do this."

So they're talking contraction, what, four years after the last expansion? Why? If the business of baseball is so bad, why would people who sold their franchises in the past five years [the Marlins' Jeffrey Loria and the Red Sox' John Henry] be buying back in?

ROUND 5: How much do you hate the Players Association? You were "disgusted" with them for defending John Rocker. Why?

The problem with the players' union is that every time [Executive Director] Donald Fehr opens his damn mouth, Joe Q. Common Guy reading the newspaper thinks those are the players' words. Screw that. The union works for me. I don't work for the union. Fehr's huge salary is paid by me.

I would have accepted whatever suspension Major League Baseball gave Rocker. Because while 99 percent of the people who read the article [about Rocker in Sports Illustrated] said, "This guy's an idiot," the other one percent say, "Baseball players are assholes."

ROUND 6: Is the Padres' Ben Davis an asshole? He's the guy who broke up your perfect game with an eighth-inning bunt.

That just shocked me. I know Ben Davis didn't walk to the plate saying, "I'm gonna lay down a bunt to get the tying run on first base." If it was Tony Gwynn or Rickey Henderson, guys who play the game right--then maybe.

There's supposed to be a code in baseball. You don't run when your team's up big. When you're down 10-0, you don't steal and you don't bunt for a base hit. That's self-glorification-- padding your stats. And when you're up big or down big-- you don't swing 3-0. Ever.

ROUND 7: While we're on the subject: Are you an asshole? Why else would you be laughing after your closer, Byung-Hyun Kim, gave up those devastating ninth-inning home runs and lost Games 4 and 5 of the World Series?

Well, I wasn't alone. Steve Finley, Matty Williams, Gonzo, Tony Womack, and Damian Miller were all hysterical. We kept saying, "Do you realize that in the middle of Game 6, if a plane crashes on the field, kills all of us, it won't be any weirder than what we've just seen? Nothing more insane can possibly happen to us." We were on the losing end, so that sucked. But we were all rolling.

ROUND 8: The D-backs are like altar boys. By comparison, your 1993 Phillies team seems like a bunch of crackheads, right?

Gypsies, tramps, and thieves--every last one of 'em. Of course, I was a pitcher on that team, and it was made very clear very early on they hated pitchers. We were just a necessary evil to get to the Series. And there were a lot of fights. For example, Mitch Williams and I never got along. We weren't friends and never have been.

[First baseman] John Kruk was like Bluto from Animal House. Every interview I did, he'd motherfuck me--"You love the media!" this and that. Now you can't turn on the TV without seeing this guy.

Dykstra...I'll just say he understood that outside the three hours he had to be intense on the field, he was allowed to have fun. He lived hard. He played hard. I'd get to the ballpark at noon, every day, just to hear stories about the night before.

ROUND 9: Three years ago doctors advised you in no uncertain terms that you should quit chewing tobacco. How's that working out for ya?

I'm still getting my ass kicked by it. I've never had anything in my life be more addictive. I'm still dipping. My New Year's resolution this year was to quit. And I went cold for three days. It was, like, "Wow, I can do this." Then I had a little, and I was right back up.

I know I have to quit. I have three kids; I'm getting ready to have a fourth. How stupid am I, with a family history of cancer, to be doing this? But it's the addictive part people don't understand. Your mind is such an incredibly powerful tool. When it's working against you, you're in trouble. I don't do it when I pitch--it doesn't enhance my performance. But I still do it.

ROUND 10: We've saved the best for last. Tell us about "slumpbusters," your baby-faced teammate Mark Grace's twisted trick for breaking out of a slump.

That was premarriage Mark. [laughs] If you are struggling at some aspect of the game and you're a single guy, there's a way that players believe you can relieve the negative karma. You go out and fornicate with a woman who might be of less than appealing visual quality I guess is the way to put it. The key to slumpbusting is alcohol intake before the excursion.

I would think it's even more prevalent in the NBA, because every player seems to have seven illegitimate kids. It's not a story you see a lot in baseball. But, hell, the world's full of single people.