Wednesday, January 14, 2004

INSIDE SCHILLING'S NOGGIN: You may never have a better opportunity to find out how a major league athlete's mind works than this ongoing thread on SoSH in which frequent poster Curt "Gehrig38" Schilling is taking questions from Red Sox fans on how he approaches the game.

For example, check out this answer on how he plans to work with Sox catcher Jason Varitek:
There are 5 people that I speak with on the day I pitch, My trainer, manager, pitching coach, defensive coach and my catcher. On my day, IMO, it's my world, conversing with anyone else is wasting breathe and time on things that will have no positive impact on me getting anyone out that night.
I ask, no I think the word demand fits, alot of my catchers. It's the reason I prefer to work with one guy, every game. It's never been a thing where I liked one guy more than the next, I want my catchers to be able to throw sure, but more than anything I want to know he's as locked into getting every hitter out and making every single pitch, for 9 innings, regardless of his AB's. That's not as easy as it sounds to find. I have always asked my catchers during games, if they have a feel for something, or see something, to shake me off. For that to happen, I shake a catcher off, he taps his chest and puts the same sign down, telling me that it's his call, and he wants the pitch he put down. In that situation he's telling me he has seen something and the pitch he wants is the pitch to throw. Hasn't happened for me in about 5 years. Catchers are afraid to do this because with that decision comes responsibility, I am hoping Tek is ok with this and I think from what I hear he will be. I want my catchers to be psyched when we throw a shutout, that matters to me. I want them to WANT to know before the games what we are going to do for that 9 innings.

Show me one professional athlete in any other sport who's this open with the fans. I wish more were.

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