Schilling: 'I will play in 2008'
Curt Schilling's tenure with the Red Sox might end after this season, but his career will not.
Schilling, whose contract with Boston expires after this season, told Boston radio station WEEI: "I will play in 2008."
At the end of last season, there was doubt Schilling would pitch in 2007, but he put that to rest before the 2006 campaign ended.
"Over the last probably 5-6 months and my wife and kids and I have been talking and we came to conclusion about a week or 10 days ago that I was not going to retire in 2007, that I was going to go ahead," Schilling told WEEI. "I always believed physically I was going to be more than OK, I feel like last year, while I certainly didn't have a year like I know I could have, toward the end I became a lot healthier and my wife and kids want me to continue to play which was the only reason I was retiring in the first place."
Schilling, 40, pitched 204 innings in 2006, with a 15-7 record and a 3.97 ERA. For his career, the right-hander is 207-138 with a 3.44 ERA. He passed the 3,000-strikeout plateau last season and has fanned 3,110 batters in his 18-year career.
While he would prefer to pitch in Boston in 2008, Schilling is open to joining another team. However, he swears he won't pull a Johnny Damon.
"Where I'm going to play beyond 2007, I hope it's Boston, but I will go out and find a home to pitch," Schilling told WEEI. "I hope it's here but there's also that possibility [of pitching for another team]. It would not be to New York."
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Damon, the Red Sox's former center fielder, signed with the Yankees last offseason after declaring he would never sign with Boston's bitter rival.
Schilling said he currently is discussing an extension with the Red Sox.
Owner John Henry said Schilling's announcement was great news for the team.
"It was something that has been in the back of my mind for the last year," Henry told The Associated Press in an e-mail. "He's such a competitor you had to figure that if he is healthy, pitching well and still has that fire, it would make sense for him to continue. He's still one of the elite pitchers in all of baseball."
Source: ESPN.com