Curt Schilling, Mr. Bloody Sock himself, wants to come back to baseball. He claimed on his blog that he feels better than he did in 2007, and expressed an interest in two teams if he were to return: The Chicago Cubs and the Tampa Bay Rays. The Cubs have not ruled out potentially signing him, and manager Lou Pinella even said ""it would be something to explore.""
As a Cubs fan—no wait, don't stop reading!—this has caused me much distress. A battle, if you will. A battle between who should be trusted when these comments came out: the heart or the brain.
It's a clash that all of us have to deal with for almost every situation in life, and it's almost a little pathetic that it's being caused by baseball this time, but it is.
The reason is because although Schilling is old—42 years old to be exact—and hasn't played in a year, there's still something about him that the Cubs are in dire need of.
He's a winner.
Not just that, a winner in the postseason.
The heart says Schilling returning with the Cubs would be a good idea because of this. His playoff record is 11-2. Over their past three playoff appearances, the Cubs' post-season record is 0-9. It just makes sense that a guy who has proven he can put a team on his back when the pressure is on should be on the team that crumbles whenever the pot starts to cook even the slightest bit.
However, this is when the brain looks at the facts. Again, he's old, and will be coming off of an injury that eventually required season-ending surgery. Can you really trust him to be that same post-season legend? Logically, you can't. There are so many potential problems that signing him would just be a waste of dollars, dollars that might be hard to come by in the future.
Also, purely as a pitcher in rotation he would be a decent addition, but nothing that makes you say, ""wow."" He won't be the same guy anymore. True, he said that he feels better than he did in 2007, and he probably knows his body better than anyone else. But in almost every great athlete, there's the thought that they can dust it off and get back to that top level again, even when physically they can't.
Schilling is not exempt from this, and he's at the point in his career where that thought might begin to begin to take hold. And like almost every one of those great athletes, he probably can't.
But, what if…
See, the heart's argument is almost always based completely on what ifs and best-case scenarios. But what if Schilling could dust it off and return to form? He could be that one guy to end that whole 101-year Word Series drought, just as he ended it in Boston. He was the creator of that almost disgusting confidence the Red Sox nation has these days by having that bleeding sock on that faithful day. What if he could bring that to Cubs fans? What if he could fundamentally change the way Cubs fans think, just as he did in Beantown?
It's fun to think about.
However, thinking about the best scenario is dangerous. Too much hope in anything can be dangerous. Sure, that situation might happen, but getting too confident in anything most always ends with something most Cubs fans know all too well: a broken heart. Then the brain chimes in with an ""I told you so,"" and we move on to the next year.
But maybe, just maybe…
What subject is your heart and brain fighting about? Probably something much more interesting than baseball, but send it to Gabe anyway at ubatuba@wisc.edu.
