You forgot to include the part in Schillings blog where he says:

"Fascinating to see the way legends play in other sports. Artificially trumping up my legend, for me, is ketchup in my socks. Really working it in there near the malleolus so that camera's can get a good, nice view. That's the kind of stuff people will remember. Not wussing out in a senate hearing on steroids."

may be why his teammates didn't get him the ball after they made their first run early in the 4th quarter. They had four or five terrible possessions after the Celts' timeout and the lead got pushed close to 20 points.

I was wondering why he never touched the ball during that stretch. I had thought it was because the Celtics were of course fouling him like crazy off the ball and it wasn't being called because the refs were conspiring to keep him down. Thanks to Curt there's an alternate theory.

Can take a flying leap

... it sounds like Kobe is reverting back to his 2004/"Last Season" form. A leopard cannot change its spots forever.

38pitches is a good example of how writing on the internet is often an exercise in ego-masturbation; blogging is flogging. Mr. Schilling is not a writer (you should hotkey "[sp]" if you're going to report on him). He's simply a self-celebrator.

Take for example, his reaction to the Mitchell report, essentially a "guilty until proven innocent" tirade on how Roger Clemens wasn't worthy (and a transparent attempt at bolstering his own Hall of Fame credentials). His calling out of Barry Bonds follows a similar "guilty until proven innocent" pattern, with a nice racist overtone. It's not that either of these guys is innocent, it's that Schilling uses the dumbest thinking imaginable when he approaches the situation. For Schilling, it's not the justice system, or even the court of public opinion that matters, it's just the court of big loud Curt Schilling.

That he's got some hero-worship going, and is able to influence the most bullshit-susceptible parts of his fan base, is annoying. As a Red Sox fan, I wish you wouldn't fan the flames of this guy's massive, insoluble, anti-team ego--it ruins our enjoyment of the team. As a democrat, I keep in mind that it took Schilling less than a week to parlay all of his good karma from the bloody sock incident into a loud endorsement for George W. Bush. That's not what I want from sports.

If you've followed Schilling's cult of self the past several years, you realize that his reaction to Kobe isn't perspective, it's simply a pissing match as soon as another alpha male is spotted. The alternative press should call Schilling what he is--a spoiled child who hit the lottery.

No wonder Schilling was shocked by Bryant's behavior, it must have been quite familiar.

Ask Mitch Williams what an outstanding teammate Schilling was.

Hey, Schilling:

Shut up and pitch, meat!

Speaking as a former ref, it depends upon the context in which the 'fuck' was uttered, IMO.

Random utterances of 'fuck' said as an exclamation or directed to a non-referee is OK.

A lament to me such as 'You're fucking killing us, blue' is OK too.

It is when you are using the 'fuck' as a form of characterization, such as 'You are a poor fucking excuse for a ref, blue' will get you a technical (from me, anyway).

I would like to hear exactly what Mr. Garnett said, but I would hope it was something really bad, directed at the referee & giving an opinion on his competence or trustworthyness before you T'd him up in such a charged atmosphere.

I think I'd rather hear Schilling musing about whatever it is he decides to now (no matter how much I disagree with his viewpoint - and especially his politics...ugh) than hearing the standard crap like "We just gotta give 110%, stay within our game, do the little things right and we should win the game...our opponents are a great team, no doubt about that, but again if we just give 110%, stay within our game blah blah blah" that you normally hear.

I guess I'd rather hear a Schilling ramble on than listen to Tim Duncan (for example)

cheers

p.s. isn't there a relief pitcher for the Twins with a great blog? What's it called again? I always meant to look it up but forgot his name.

Schilling's blog entry, which King linked, does detail what Schilling heard Garnett say:

He did NOT call the ref a name, he was bitching about a non-call and said "C'mon, what the F am I supposed to do" and got the T. Now I watch both Pierce, and I think Allen, talking to this ref and he shoots back to Paul this little tidbit. "I can't let him talk to me that way."

Pat Neshek of the Minnesota Twins has a blog here:

http://www.eteamz.com/patneshek/index.cfm

The sad thing is that he's now out for the season with an arm injury, so he hasn't been posting as frequently. If you can stand to look at the blog with its bright red background, there's some really interesting stuff in there. He's a huge baseball memorabilia collector, so there's a lot about that on his blog. Some of his old archives are really neat too, because they talk about him being a minor leaguer trying to make "the show."

As someone who was there, I disagree with King's statement that: "an up-close description of Michael Jordan in his prime would have read all that differently."

Except for extremely rare occasions, Michael Jordan did not conduct himself in such immature, and counterproductive, manner. The counterproductive part is the important aspect. MJ wanted to win at all costs--even if it meant he had to act like a professional. He took it out on his teammates in practice if he thought they were not working or improving. He did not humuliate them during games or alienate himself to the point that they would not pass him the ball.