Sports Redux: Welcome to the Circus

You've got to be kidding us. We can't get anywhere near the rest of the media during Red Sox spring training (MLB doesn't believe in the journalistic credibility of blogs, can you believe it?), and the big press conference of the pre-season takes place in the Red Sox spring training complex PARKING LOT? We totally should have gone to Florida to try to jump in on the conversation that took place on Monday between Curt Schilling and a small group of hand-picked media.

In typical fashion involving Schilling, the story grew to become something larger than the story itself - equal parts the news being reported and the reporting of the news. Dan Shaughnessy's karma came back to bite him and the mother paper with the Schill Sit-Down: the Globe was kept in the dark, as were multiple other Boston news sources (the Herald, meanwhile, has the complete transcript online).

Many sports scribes are, as a result, non-plussed about the notion of a shady parking lot press conference with NESN and a few other folks. We understand their griping: we'd be livid too. That said, if Curt really wants to piss CHB off, he should email us and set up an IM interview. It'll be epic.

So what was Schilling so eager to discuss? He's angry about the way this whole shoulder situation has gone down, and he trusts the opinion of Dr. Craig Morgan, the guy who cut into his shoulder and fixed him up 13 years ago. Morgan says surgery's the way to go. The Sox say no. Schilling's going with the Sox take, but he wants to go with Morgan (whom he likened to Jonathan Papelbon, which gives us an image of spikey hair, cigars, and surgical masks).

That's it. Nothing particularly new, nothing particularly insightful (save the fact that Curt thinks he's a smart guy when it comes to medicine). But Schilling knows how to keep things interesting, by mentioning to a couple of guys in a parking lot that he may never pitch again and then disappearing to let John Henry walk into the craziness.

"Mr. Schilling finally opened up, I understand," is the quote, and the phrasing speaks for itself. We've got ourselves a conflict, people!

Speaking of injured players, Kevin Garnett practiced with the rest of the Celtics green on Monday and hopes to suit up tonight for Boston's game in Denver.

Photo of Schilling and Orsillo by flickr user libdespot. We imagine that this is somewhat how Monday's parking lot conversation looked. Only without the rest of those media types around.