Curt Schilling continues to bash ESPN, reveals his massive salary

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In the weeks after his firing from ESPN, Curt Schilling has shown himself to have no problem lashing out against his former employer, and that continued Monday morning when the ex-MLB pitcher and baseball analyst appeared on NBC Sports’ “The Dan Patrick Show.”

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In this latest stop of the Curt Schilling Tells His Side of the Story tour, we hear many of the same things and a few new ones. He’s still saying ESPN is “outwardly bigoted and intolerant,” but he also admits he made $2.5 million per year from ESPN. (Daaaaamn!)

Here’s the meatiest quote from Schilling about being a conservative at ESPN:

“They sent out memos, ‘Listen, we want our sports people on-air talent to stick to sports, stay away from politics and all the other stuff.’ … The next thing, Stephen A. Smith tells the world Robert Griffin can’t play quarterback for the Redskins because he is black, not because he sucks, which it was because he sucks. Then you got [Dan] Le Batard and you got Tony Kornheiser comparing the Tea Party to ISIS. So, I think what the memo meant to say was ‘If you’re not liberal and you’re not a Democrat, do not stray from sports.’ So they did that and it happened again. And I kept trying to explain to them, I get it, to some extent, but I’m not doing this openly and outwardly anymore. This is something I’m commenting on. The other piece that really jumped out at me was, people would talk — you know the green room where everybody hangs out. It’s the ESPN version of the locker room. A lot of times people would be like, they would come up to me and whisper, ‘Hey man, I’m with ya, I’m a Republican,’ as if we were the secret card-carrying members of some group that couldn’t be, that ‘those who shall not be named.’ The inclusiveness is inclusive as long as you are pointing in the same direction they are.”

(Sirius XM) This is in line with some of Schilling’s previous comments about working at ESPN and the double standard he says is applied when it comes to conservative viewpoints. He also maintained that he doesn’t have a racist bone in his body and doesn’t have a problem about gays, lesbians or transgendered people.

“As long as you’re not sleeping with my wife, I don’t care who you sleep with,” he said.

Schilling added his youngest son is “actively involved” in LGBT community, but didn’t specify in which way, only saying that he’s had young people from the LGBT community at his house and “they’re good kids.”

[Elsewhere: Curt Schilling wants to charge fans to watch baseball with him]

As for the matter of his ESPN salary, $2.5 million is a hefty lump of cash — and a big paycheck to put in jeopardy by continuing to post memes on Facebook after having already been disciplined for his social media use. But Schilling said he didn’t need the money to provide for his family, and if he had, he might have done things differently.

The quote that might explain the Schilling-vs.-ESPN beef best is this one:

“I’m not a measured speaker,” Schilling said. “I never have been. I was told one of the reasons they hired me was that I was opinionated and that I spoke my opinion whether it went against the grain or not. That was the case right up until I spoke an opinion they didn’t agree with.”

As it turned out, it was ESPN that drew the line in the stand, as you might expect when it’s paying someone $2.5 million. The network wanted Curt Schilling, the opinionated baseball analyst, not Curt Schilling, the guy who posts political memes on Facebook.

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