Curt Schilling, the ex-Boston Red Sox ace pitcher, appeared on Breitbart News Daily on SiriusXM 125 The Patriot Channel with host and Breitbart News Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon on Friday morning to make absolutely clear he is not backing down to the left over his transgender bathroom comments.
Schilling, who led the Red Sox to their first World Series victory in 86 years in 2004 by carrying the team through the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees by literally pitching on an ankle so busted his sock was bleeding, was fired from ESPN this week for siding with the majority of America on the transgender public restrooms issue.
Schilling, a conservative, this week posted on his blog a photograph of a heavyset overweight man wearing women’s clothing and a wig with the caption: “Let him in! To the restroom with your daughter or else you’re a narrow minded, judgmental, unloving, racist bigot who needs to die!!!”
It came amid the controversy surrounding the North Carolina bathroom law regarding transgender people, and as such ESPN used Schilling’s common-sense comments to fire him. “Curt Schilling has been advised that his conduct was unacceptable and his employment with ESPN has been terminated,” the network said in a statement.
When Bannon asked Schilling if he’s a “hater,” Schilling replied that he’s not.
“Hand to God, I’m going to tell you a quick story: in my family, my kids, the minute the word hate comes out of [somebody’s] mouth [when talking about me], they now kind of chuckle about it because I’ve always said, ‘Listen, there’s very little of anything in the world that I hate,’” Schilling said. “Hate takes effort. Hate takes energy. There’s far too much in this world that requires effort and energy otherwise that I don’t have the energy to hate. I don’t hate anything.”
Schilling compared the accusations against him to someone who hasn’t molested children being accused of being a child molester.
“That’s how I feel,” Schilling told Bannon. “I don’t have a racist bone in my body. I’m not transphobic. I’m not homophobic. My 16-year-old son is one of the founding members of the LBGT club in high school. That’s his group. That’s the people he loves and hangs out with. He has no blinders on. His whole world is about ‘I don’t care who you are and what you are—you’re good people.’ Those kids are in and out of this house all the time. I’ve never in my life treated somebody based on a racial denomination or religion or sexual preference. I don’t care. I’ve never cared. As long as you’re not sleeping with my wife, I don’t care who you sleep with. So that, to me, to be where we’re at—something had to go wildly askew. I hate to use that defense when people talk about ‘oh, you’re a racist,’ that ‘no, I have black friends.’ But listen, I’m 49 years old. I had a company with almost 400 employees. I had many people that were transgender. There were people that were gay and all the things that were like that. They were some of the greatest people in the world; they’re still friends and some of the people I talk with. If in my past, I’d ever been a racist or I’d ever said something racist or if I had ever been transphobic or homophobic, somebody somewhere would have said something I’m sure given my status.”
Schilling added that the motivation of people who have been criticizing him over this seems to be that they have an agenda.
“That’s why I sleep well at night—I’m okay with people I don’t know saying things that aren’t true because life is hard enough. I can’t live my life to make people that don’t know me like me,” Schilling said. “ And I won’t. And people don’t like that, for whatever reason they don’t like that. And one more thing I would tell you this: I am firmly a believer now in that this isn’t about me being transphobic or me trying to promote transphobic things. It feels to me like this is about people whose agenda is way more important to them than it is to me, and I’m not making a big enough deal about it.”
Alex Marlow, the Editor of Chief of Breitbart News, asked Schilling about a headline—“Contrition Continues To Elude Curt Schilling”—linking to a New York Times article that calls for him to apologize for what he said. Marlow noted that the “Social Justice crowd” is “trying to shame” Schilling into “one of those ritual public apologies.”
“Listen, people that know me know I talk a lot—I have opinions on a lot of things—I never have a problem admitting when I’m wrong or make a mistake,” Schilling said. “And I do it a lot–number one because I’m human and the only perfect human who ever walked the earth died a couple thousand years ago. I don’t try to be wrong. I love debate. I love to talk about things. I love to debate people who have a completely opposing opinion of mine because I think it helps me get educated about things I don’t know about, number one. But number two, I think vice versa is true as well. But here’s the problem: People have a very, very distorted view of opinions and beliefs. Beliefs, to me, are things that are foundational to what makes you. Jesus was the living Son of God, that’s a belief. I know that. An opinion is that I don’t think men should pee in women’s bathrooms, and vice versa. That’s an opinion. I don’t think anything differently about people because of that opinion. If you disagree with me, that’s fine. There’s a discussion to be had.”
Bannon noted to Schilling that “they’re trying to break you,” but Schilling said he won’t back down.
“Oh yeah, this is not the first time [they’ve tried to break me],” Schilling said. “For 20 years as a baseball player, I drove GMs [general managers] kind of batshit crazy because I wasn’t afraid to say what I thought and felt. Now, listen, that doesn’t make me right. That makes me me. I was in a position to question ownership and general managers because I knew I wasn’t going to get fired—and younger players wouldn’t say the things I said. So, if you’re expected me to give you everything I possibly have to win every night, I expect the same from you—and if you’re not going to give it to us, then I have a problem. That rubbed people the wrong way. That made GMs [upset]. But no one ever questioned—my job was to pitch every fifth day and win. No one I ever played with before would ever tell you, or question the amount of effort I put in on those days. So, that was my job. My job was to win. It wasn’t to play baseball—it was to win. And I took that very seriously, and I do that with everything—and much to my wife’s chagrin, 9 times out of 10, I don’t have the ability to just answer a question I’m passionate about ‘yes’ or ‘no’ because I think that that’s a shallow thing to do a lot of times.”
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot Channel 125 weekdays from 6:00AM to 9:00AM EST.
You can listen to the full interview with Curt Schilling below:
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.