Doc Morgan, Curt, and Nothing.

Cute, Doc. If Curt had had his surgery in January, he would have been available for the ALCS.

Okay.

At which time, having not even pitched so much as a minor league rehab start, we would throw him into the heat of action, as surely as Steve Nebraska threw his famed 81-pitch perfecto in his first major league start, Game 1 of the World Series.

Of course.

Furthermore, Curt Schilling had no idea he was in poor health when he signed his easy $8 million in spite of comments he's made saying he "broke" his shoulder midway through last year and never fully recovered. None at all.

I believe that. (I also believe whoever on the Sox staff performed Curt's physical better be the trainer for a Cape Cod League team. Perhaps it was Dr. Craig Morgan?)



The bigger point here, doc, is that as my man Billy Preston put it, nothing for nothing leaves nothing. You gotta have something, if you wanna talk this shit.

A pitcher available just in time the American League Championship Series without any regular season starts is useful only to the most desperate of teams, usually the kind that don't make it that far.

And planning a player's season around his team making it to the ALCS is just stupid.

And attempting to get $8 million worth out of a pitcher in one, possibly two playoff series is genuinely impossible. The Red Sox needed some return on their value. They went for broke. It didn't work out. Surgery probably wouldn't have either.

Doc Morgan is proud of his work on Curt's shoulder, and that's great. He's so proud of his work that he's deeply disappointed Curt can't show it off in 2008; for that matter, he might not show it off in 2009. That's silly.

Schilling had it right the first time. And now, because he got it wrong the second time (Curt: "This city, this team. This is where we want to retire, raise our kids, and walk away.") we're fairly likely to see a dreadful half-season incarnation of the third time, probably not in Boston. The third time, in sports retirements, is rarely the charm.



Sometimes it's better to cut your losses than get booed off the stage. I'm clutching the cane just in case.