As fate would have it, much of my day centered around Shonda Schilling’s skin-cancer prevention speech at Colgate Elementary School in Dundalk where we went to school together many moons ago.
Obviously, she is NOT amused about “sockgate” and I didn’t really need to ASK her about the “bloody sock” — geez, I’ve known Shonda since 1972 and Curt since 1989. I know them to be honest people and I have NO CLUE what Gary Thorne was thinking or will say to defend the comments.
All she said to me was that Mirabellli was quite upset.
I remember being at Yankee Stadium for Game 7 in 2004. I remember Shonda’s father, Don, giving me all of the details about how grotesque Curt’s ankle was the night before. I didn’t need to “ask” if it was a real injury.
So, enough about “sock gate” already…I believe my friends…and I’ll leave it at that!
As for Shonda and her skin cancer seminar for kids, it was amazing to see this woman I’ve known longer than I’ve known most anyone on the planet taking command of these kids in the same elementary school cafeteria we ate lunch in every day from 5 years old on. She was amazing, as usual, and continues to dazzle me with her efforts to be a philanthropist baseball wife.
We toured our old school with her daughter and had some laughs and memories. It was really great!
Shonda suffered from a horrible series of surgeries five years ago from a melanoma that probably began in our alley when she was a kid. She now tries to educate kids about the dangers of UV rays and cancer. By all means, check out her website and give it some serious consideration for you and your family.
Here’s the link…
http://shadefoundation.org/
I am taking in the O’s-Red Sox game tonight with my wife and will attend my first-ever baseball game with one of my favorite people in my business — Peter King of Sports Illustrated. We’ve been friends for years and have been threatening to go to a ballgame either here or in Philly. I don’t spend money inside Camden Yards so I doubt I’ll be having a beer with him.
He’s a big Sox fan. My wife is a big Sox fan.
So, I am HONESTLY thinking of sporting my “Baltimore” Orioles jersey. It’s wool and it itches the HELL outta me, BUT given the frigid conditions, I might be able to insulate the hell out of the thing and sport a FREE THE BIRDS ski cap and rock it tonight for old Drew, who loves that thing.
(He wears his more often, but his is cotton, a MUCH better idea for me!)
I’ll see if I can take some crazy pictures of how many Red Sox fans will be there. I’m already outnumbered 2-to-1 in my own party!
Either way, as crappy as the weather is — and I went to Philly last night for the Nats-Phils game and refused to sit and freeze — I really expect that tonight will be a lot of fun at the ballpark.
At least that’s my hope…we’ll see!!
I’ll have a full written report on your desk in the morning…
P.S. I’ll bet that Thorne would rather be calling a hockey game tonight.
P.P.S. Hey Gary — you can still take refuge tonight by calling the Red Wings game on my couch! That would keep me home from the cold!
