Curt Schilling tries to sell NBA free agent Kevin Durant on Boston
Whatever Curt Schilling has been doing since being fired from ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball apparently isn’t enough for him. Now he’s trying his hand at being a sports ambassador for the city of Boston.
On his blog, 38 Pitches, Schilling wrote a letter to NBA free agent Kevin Durant on Sunday titled “Why Boston?” which pleads with Durant to consider the Boston Celtics when he picks a team to sign with. And Schilling pulled out all the stops. First, he talked about the decision he was faced with in 2003 when he was choosing his next team.
You’ve made it to a point in your career when you get to pick where, and for how much, you play next. Congratulations, people don’t understand how hard that actually is.
In the winter of 2003 I was ‘sort of’ in that same boat. I had options. The first? I could go to NY, and become a Yankee, and possibly win the 28th? 29th? World Championship in their storied history.
Or?
I could go to Boston and do something no one had seen in their lifetimes, help break an 86 year old curse.
Of course, that’s exactly what Schilling did. He helped the Boston Red Sox win their first World Series since 1918. And while every city has passionate fans, Schilling thinks that Boston’s fans are the best.
…People here in NE aren’t transplants, they aren’t bandwagon folks. You are born, and raised here, and the Celtic, Sox, Bruins and Pats are not ‘your teams’ they are part of your life. I had NO IDEA it was what it was until I came here.I know passion, I lived for the game, but I never took the ball in front of people who loved their players and their teams more than these folks.
As I learned in the winter of ’03, when I was informed families were actually PRAYING for me to come here over their thanksgiving table, this place is a different world.
And that’s not bad different.
Then, Schilling gets passionate about life in Boston post-Red Sox championship, telling Durant that Boston isn’t just an amazing place to call home, it’s also a phenomenal place to win a title.
You come here, you help win a title and it won’t be a celebration. It’s a revival, it’s a “you will never be forgotten and never have to buy another beer” kind of championship.
These people live for their teams, their athletes, you come here, bust your ass (which I don’t think will ever be an issue) and you leave it all on the floor and you’ll have a few million folks who’ll name kids, dogs and whatever else they can, Kevin, KD, Durant or some other derivative.
Schilling certainly isn’t wrong about this, though to be fair this does happen in other cities as well. There are a lot of kids named Chase in the Philadelphia area (after Chase Utley), and Derek Jeter never has to pay for another drink in New York City for the rest of his life. But Schilling is trying to tell Durant that he would most definitely be “That Guy” for the Celtics.
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Schilling even invoked the famous bloody sock from game 6 of the 2004 ALCS to try and convince Durant to choose Boston.
Schilling played for five teams during his major league career — the Baltimore Orioles, Houston Astros, Philadelphia Phillies, Arizona Diamondbacks, and Boston Red Sox — but as this letter shows, he clearly feels closest to Boston. He wants more sports championships for the city, and he feels that Durant would be the difference maker for the Celtics.
Durant is expected to announce his decision on Monday via the Players Tribune, so Schilling got his request in under the wire. Whether it will make a difference to Kevin Durant is another story. The Celtics apparently brought Tom Brady with them when they met with Durant over the weekend. In the battle of Boston sports legends, Brady and his four Super Bowl championships with the New England Patriots has the edge over Schilling. But at the very least, Schilling can say he tried his very best to woo Durant to Boston.
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
