ESPN has removed baseball analyst Curt Schilling from covering the remainder of the 2015 MLB regular season and playoffs.
Schilling ran afoul of the his employer after tweeting a picture comparing the Islamic State to 1940s Nazi Germany back in August. (RELATED: MLB Analyst Curt Schilling Tweets Picture Comparing Radical Islam To Nazism [PHOTOS])
Originally, ESPN only gave Schilling the boot from Little League World Series coverage, but after emails he sent to Deadspin earlier this week surfaced, defending Schilling’s views as a “Conservative American,” the sportscasting giant announced they would be pulling him from the remainder of the MLB season.
ESPN: At all times during the course of their engagement with us, our commentators are directly linked to ESPN and are the face of our brand. We are a sports media company. Curt’s actions have not been consistent with his contractual obligations nor have they been professionally handled; they have obviously not reflected well on the company. As a result, he will not appear on ESPN through the remainder of the regular season and our Wild Card playoff game.
For the record, here is the email Schilling sent to Deadspin:
Dan,
I am a Republican, next to California I live in the bluest area on the planet. I am a former Red Sox player, I am a Steeler fan, a Bruins fan and I raise chickens and next to my Rottie I have a 3 pd Maltese named Ellie I take everywhere. I’m 6’5″ 245 for crying out loud. My body is a cruel family joke (thanks to my Dad) and I am losing my hair.
All that to say ya, I’ve been on the receiving end of crap for a good long while.
I have zero issues, ever, with anyone that wants to disagree, call me on something, yell at me for something else or just MF me because I am a Conservative American who loves the soldiers and the flag and everything they stand for and am incapable of answering any question yes/no. I made mistakes, and given what the Bible has told me I’ll do so every day for the rest of my life. Certainly not intentional, never racial and I have tried to never be malicious. I hate bullies.
All I ever ask is honesty and an attempt at integrity.
But if you want to rip me, or talk shit about me, please do it with more than an ounce of pride in your job. Nowhere, ever, before during or after, have I ever compared “Muslims” to “Nazis,” ever. Normal every day peace loving Muslims have as much to do with “radical” as I do with “fleet afoot”…
I don’t have a racist bone in my body, never have. Anyone that knows me even a little knows that.
Yet you, like so many others, continue to destroy what’s left of the publics trust and confidence in media by creating a story of your own design and liking when you didn’t need to, and smearing someone’s reputation ato do it. Any thought at all as to my children and their thoughts if they read the lie you created? That’s an honest question. I dealt with it in my home, but I always wonder when people of your ilk give ruining someone a shot, if you ever do think about the family you impact. Especially when you are creating a story that never happened to do it.
And for what it is worth I apologized for tweeting. The forum was about as poor a choice as I could have made in trying to elicit a potential discussion on that topic. I did not, and will not apologize for the content of the tweet. If you, or anyone else, can’t wrap your head around your native language enough to understand that omitting words, or adding them, is plain and simple lying when it comes to journalism. Oh and it changes the content of a quote when you do that too. But you already knew that. But to paraphrase, when a radical minority is opposed by a silent and weak majority, really really bad stuff can, and has, and likely will again, happen.