Schilling’s openness is great (and his refusal to play for the Yankees)

I love it when athletes are honest and open (except for cases of spewing insults at people or saying something detrimental to the team). In today’s sports world, athletes are getting more and more politically correct, few are speaking their minds.

Curt Schilling isn’t one of those athletes. He’s said a lot of things I’ve disagreed with over the years, but I appreciate that he’s willing to share his thoughts on everything, in interviews on TV and radio, and more recently, on his blog, 38pitches.com.

It’s rare you see a free agent publicly release a list of teams he’s interested in playing for. If you ever hear specific teams, it’s usually either the hometown team or the Yankees (who are willing to pay him the most money).

Here’s what Schilling said (ellipsis mine):

The list of teams that our family has talked over, that we think would be a fit for next year, should we not come back, are pretty much teams in cities we agree would be ok for our last year, …

Cleveland, Detroit, Anaheim, New York Mets, Philadelphia, Atlanta, L.A., S.D., Arizona, Chicago Cubs, St. Louis, Milwaukee

Most noticeably, Schilling left off the Yankees, which I find impressive, because I would figure they’d likely be interested in him with their shaky rotation, and they usually have a lot of money to spend. I don’t like either the Red Sox or the Yankees, but understand how big of a rivalry it is, and it’s good to see a player not wanting to switch sides.

Curt, on the one in a million chance you read this, come to the Angels. The fans will treat you great (we never boo anyone on the home team), the local media here is relatively tame, the weather’s great, the ballpark is much more pitcher-friendly than Fenway Park, and more importantly, the team is great. The Angels have been to the playoffs four times in the last six years — only the Yankees, Red Sox and Braves can say that.

(Hat-tip to Larry Brown Sports, where I found this originally.)