Back in ancient time, right around November 2003 BCE (Before the Celebration Era), Theo Epstein brought a player to the Red Sox named Curtis Montegue Schilling. When Schilling joined the Sox he said a lot of things, some good, some bad. For every “I can’t think of a cooler scenario than making 55000 New Yorkers shut up,” there was a “make sure you tell everybody to vote, and vote Bush next week.” Needless to say, he put his mouth in quite a few places. But you could never accuse Curt of not also putting his money where his mouth was. He made those 55000 New Yorkers shut up in 2004 and he (I assume) voted for Bush in 2004.

But for some reason when he said he wanted to return to the Sox for his final season, everybody (myself included) was extremely skeptical. We figured he’d take the big money deal wherever it was and wouldn’t take a hometown discount to pitch in Fenway in 2008. Well, my apologies go out to the “Dome-Bellied Big Lug,” we should have learned by now that he’d put his money where his mouth is once again. An $8M contract with a ton of incentives is exactly what I like to see as a Sox fan. Plus this now lines up a possible rotation of Beckett/Schilling/Dice-K/Lester/Buchholz/Wake (yes that’s six) for 2008. How sweet would that be.

So thanks big guy, it’ll be a pleasure to see you end your career in a Sox jersey. Mostly because it means mine will never go out of style.