Curt Schilling was encouraged to use performance-enhancing drugs late in his career with the Red Sox by “former members of the organization” in the team’s clubhouse, he said in an ESPN Radio interview.
“At the end of my career, in 2008 when I had gotten hurt, there was a conversation that I was involved in, in which it was brought to my attention that this is a potential path I might want to pursue,” Schilling said.
Schilling, who was up for Hall of Fame induction last month but was not voted in, didn’t wish to name names, but called the PED talk an “incredibly uncomfortable conversation, because it came up in the midst of a group of people.
“The other people weren’t in the conversation, but they could clearly hear the conversation, and it was suggested to me that at my age, and in my situation, why not, what did I have to lose?” Schilling said. “Because if I wasn’t going to get healthy, it didn’t matter, and if I did get healthy, great. It caught me off guard, to say the least, but that was an awkward situation.”
According to the Boston Globe, Schilling told Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein about the PED suggestion, and Epstein told Major League Baseball, which then investigated it. The Globe said the specific drug proposed was HGH and the person was “a member of the team’s medical staff” who is no longer with the team.
Schilling revealed to the Globe he was “kind of mad” that Epstein told MLB about what happened, since he was reluctant to disrupt the Sox clubhouse.
Schilling, who declined to discuss the issue further when reached by The Post last night, also said on ESPN Radio that he believes Alex Rodriguez’s career is over after his last run-in with alleged PED use.
“I would be shocked if he [came back],” Schilling said of the Yankees third baseman. “Not shocked, I’d be surprised. I think he’s done.”
Schilling, now an analyst with ESPN, retired in 2009 at age 43. He played his last game with the Red Sox in 2007 as a member of the World Series championship team. Schilling finished his 20-year career with a record of 216-146 with a 3.46 ERA.
In the postseason, he was 11-2 with a 2.23 ERA and is most known for winning Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series against the Yankees with an injured, bloody ankle.