Red Sox ‘bloody sock’ controversy unraveled

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Looks as though the DNA experts won’t be needed to solve this “CSI: Boston” case after all.

The biggest controversy to erupt around New England sports since Johnny Damon’s free-agent departure seems to have resulted from a big misunderstanding.

Maine native Gary Thorne was at the center of the uproar after calling into question the authenticity of Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling’s famous bloody sock on the air Wednesday night.

Thorne, an Old Town native and veteran broadcaster who was hired as the Baltimore Orioles’ television play-by-play announcer for Mid-Atlantic Sports Network this spring, made the offhand remarks during Wednesday’s broadcast of the Orioles game against the Red Sox.

According to The Boston Globe, Thorne said Boston backup catcher Doug Mirabelli told him a couple of years ago Schilling’s bloody sock actually did not have blood on it. He said Mirabelli said the blood was actually paint that had been applied for public relations reasons.

“It was painted,” Thorne said during the Orioles-Red Sox game on Wednesday, according to Associated Press reports. “Doug Mirabelli confessed up to it after. It was all for PR.”

Mirabelli denied saying the sock was painted and told The Boston Globe that Thorne’s comment was “a straight lie.”

“I never said that,” Mirabelli told reporters. “I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood.”

Thorne, the original radio voice of the University of Maine men’s hockey team and a UMaine alumnus, said he called Mirabelli on Thursday afternoon to sort things out.

“I talked to Doug today and we had a good conversation,” Thorne said in a telephone interview. “It was a misunderstanding. What he said and what I heard were two different things. I took what he said as serious when he was not.

“I also talked to [Red Sox manager] Terry Francona on the field before the game and he was wonderful about it. He couldn’t have been nicer.”

Mirabelli talked to the press after talking with Thorne on Thursday afternoon. His quotes were posted online by The Hartford Courant:

“I was very upset [Wednesday] night. To throw my name out there as matter-of-factly as he [Thorne] did, it was like we had just had a conversation and I had just told him today that it was a fake sock,” Mirabelli is quoted as saying. “That wasn’t even close to the conversation I had with him. I think he feels bad about it. I think he knows he made a mistake and he’s going to do his best to clear it up tonight [Thursday].”

The bloody sock is the one Schilling wore after Red Sox team doctor Bill Morgan performed a surgical procedure on his injured ankle so he could pitch against the New York Yankees in Game 6 of the 2004 American League Championship Series.

The Red Sox rallied after losing the first three games of the series to win the next four and went on to sweep St. Louis in four games to win their first World Series in 86 years.

Schilling also bloodied another sock while pitching Game 2 of the World Series that year. The World Series sock is on display at the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y., and has turned brown with age.

Hall of Fame spokesman Jeff Idelson told the AP he has “no idea” where Schilling’s bloody sock from the ALCS is, but is confident the World Series bloody sock, which Schilling delivered to Cooperstown himself, is authentic.

Schilling, who has said in previous published reports that the sock from the ALCS game was tossed into the laundry, had addressed the issue previously in his own Internet blog, 38pitches.com, on March 17.

“Needless to say it was blood, my blood, and it was coming from the sutures in my ankle,” Schilling wrote. “You’re either stupid or bitter if you think otherwise.”

An article in the February 2006 issue of GQ magazine, “The Ten Most Hated Athletes,” cited an anonymous ex-Red Sox teammate who said the blood was fake.

Former teammates Orlando Cabrera, starting shortstop on the 2004 World Series team who is now with the L.A. Angels of Anaheim, and Kevin Millar, a starting designated hitter-first baseman-outfielder, came to Schilling’s defense Thursday.

“I was actually in the training room when he was getting the sutures, so I don’t see no reason why he would have to paint blood on his sock,” Cabrera told an AP reporter before Thursday’s game against Tampa Bay. “I don’t know why people want to believe that it wasn’t blood.”

The wisecracking Millar, now with the Orioles, painted a red splotch on the white sock he wore Thursday night as a jab at the whole controversy.

Red Sox president and CEO Larry Lucchino made the following statement through director of media relations John Blake:

“Regarding the remarks made on Wednesday by Baltimore Orioles announcer Gary Thorne, the Red Sox will not respond to, or dignify these insinuations with extensive comment.

“Such gossip occurred in 2004 and we will not participate in further comment other than to remind everyone that we remain steadfastly proud of the courageous efforts by a seriously injured Curt Schilling, efforts that helped the Red Sox to the 2004 world championship.”

Morgan told the AP the accusation that the sock had anything other than blood on it was “hard to fathom.”

“Obviously, we put sutures in Curt Schilling’s ankle right before he went out to pitch in a professional-level baseball game,” Morgan said in a statement e-mailed to the AP. “Sutures will pull with movement, and we completely expected a certain amount of blood to ooze from the wound. Socks are like sponges, and even a small amount of blood can soak a sock.”

Before meeting with Thorne, Francona told The Boston Globe he was stunned.

“[Thorne’s remarks] go so far past disappointing. Disrespectful to Schill, to his vocation,” Francona was quoted as saying. “I am just floored. Schill takes his share of shots, and this one is so far below the best that I’m embarrassed and I wish somebody would have had the good conscience to ask me.”

The 58-year-old Thorne is in his fifth year as a primary broadcaster for ESPN and ESPN2. He has called NHL and Major League Baseball action for ABC and ESPN in his 30-year broadcasting career. He also writes a weekly sports column for the Bangor Daily News.

DNA and CSI aside, public sentiment seemed to strongly favor Schilling on Thursday. An online poll on ESPN.com asked “What was on Curt Schilling’s sock during the 2004 postseason?” At 6 p.m. Thursday, 149,240 votes had been cast with 66.6 percent of those saying it was blood and 33.3 saying “something else.”