Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling says he's retiring from baseball.
The right-hander, who won World Series championships with the Arizona Diamondbacks and Boston Red Sox, announced Monday on his blog 38pitches.com that he's leaving the game after 23 years with "zero regrets."
Schilling missed all of last season with a shoulder injury but had said he might come back in the middle of this season. He made no reference to his injury on his blog, writing only that he was very grateful.
"To say I’ve been blessed would be like calling Refrigerator Perry ‘a bit overweight’. The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime," Schilling wrote.
Schilling leaves behind a legacy as one of the game's great post season performers. in 19 playoff starts he compiled a 10-2 record with a 2.23 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 133 1/3 innings.
In 2004, his legend was cemented when he underwent an experimental surgery to repair a tendon in his ankle ahead of his start in Game 6 of the ALCS against the New York Yankees. The only other time the procedure had been performed was on a cadaver.
Schilling went on to pitch seven innings of one-run baseball -- a spot of blood spreading out from the sutures on his ankle -- helping Boston climb out of a 3-games-to-none hole.
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The Sox then swept the St. Louis Cardinals, winning their first the World Series title in 86 years, with Schilling bloodying another sock in Game 2 while pitching 6 innings of shutout ball in a 6-2 Boston win.
The last time Schilling pitched was Oct. 25, 2007, when he held the Colorado Rockies to one run over 5 1/3 innings in Game 2 of the World Series. The Sox would go to their second Series sweep in four years.
Schilling ends his career with 3,116 strikeouts, 14th most in baseball history, a 216-146 record and a 3.46 ERA.
