As a top pitcher in Major League Baseball for nearly 20 years, Curt Schilling didn’t make many errors. On Tuesday, however, he admitted that he made a costly one.
On that morning, the three-time World Series champion tweeted an image of Hitler against a dark blood-red background that compared modern Muslims to the German population under Hitler. Schilling deleted the tweet shortly after posting it.
“It’s said that only 5-10% of Muslims are extremists,” the graphic read. “In 1940, only 7% of Germans were Nazis. How’d that go?”
Schilling added in his own accompanying text: “The math is staggering when you get to true #’s.”
Sigh pic.twitter.com/s1Zjab4W7z
— Nick Bromberg (@NickBromberg) August 25, 2015
Schilling, who has been a live game analyst for ESPN since 2010, was suspended immediately from his current assignment broadcasting games at the Little League World Series.
“Curt’s tweet was completely unacceptable, and in no way represents our company’s perspective,” ESPN said in a written statement. “We made that point very strongly to Curt and have removed him from his current Little League assignment pending further consideration.”
The former All-Star has not issued an official apology but responded apologetically to several tweets and tweeted in response: “I understand and accept my suspension. 100% my fault. Bad choices have bad consequences and this was a bad decision in every way on my part.”
Schilling, a self-described conservative and born-again Christian, claimed back in January that he did not get voted into the Hall of Fame in his third year of eligibility because he’s a Republican.
“I know that as a Republican that there’s some people that really don’t like that,” he told Boston radio WEEI. “When human beings do something, anything, there’s bias and prejudice.”
Schilling has also engaged in controversial Twitter dialogue before, most notably questioning the theory of evolution last November.
Where are the fossils for all the ‘MISSES” in your Evolution theory? Elephants bred elephants, and will for a thousand years right?
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) November 13, 2014
Schilling played 19 seasons for five teams and won World Series championships with the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001 and the Boston Red Sox in 2004 and 2007. He was a six-time All-Star and has the best postseason record of all-time for a pitcher with at least 10 playoff decisions.
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