And they’re out.
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling isn’t just a World Series MVP — he’s also one fierce dad.
As many as nine Twitter users paid the price for their posts after Schilling’s proud tweet congratulating daughter Gabby on her acceptance to the Rhode Island college Salve Regina devolved into sexually explicit online comments directed at the teen.
“As a father, besides providing for my family, what other job do I have? Loving my kids and protecting my family,” Schilling told the Daily News Monday night.
He said he is aware of nine trolls who lost their jobs or got kicked off athletic teams — “and we’re not done.”
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The unrelenting father, who wrote an angry response on his personal blog (38 pitches) after the social media maelstrom, told The News, “Lost in all of this is, my daughter is 17. She’s a minor. And these guys are all adults. I’m pursuing legal recourse on a couple of them because they broke the law. What they did can have them labeled as a sex offender for the rest of their lives.”
One Twitter user, identified by Schilling as recent Montclair (N.J.) State University graduate Sean MacDonald, was fired by the Yankees as a part-time ticket seller Monday, after the team learned of his offensive posts.
“There is no place for anything like this and the Yankees have zero tolerance for anything of this nature,” Jason Zillo, the Yankees’ executive director of communications, told the Daily News Monday, referring to MacDonald’s firing. “He is no longer with us.”
Schilling noted on his blog that MacDonald was a member of the Theta Xi fraternity while at Montclair State. The frat was quick to distance itself from his crude remarks.
“We are aware of the inappropriate and offensive tweets that were posted by an alumnus of Theta Xi Fraternity,” it said in a statement. “We agree wholeheartedly that cyber-bullying is unacceptable and should not be tolerated. This is not in accordance with the values of our organization, and we assure you that disciplinary actions have begun to address his unfortunate decision and hold our member accountable.”
RELATED: CURT SCHILLING’S DAUGHTER: ‘NOBODY SHOULD BE ABLE TO GET AWAY WITH SAYING THINGS LIKE THAT’
Schilling traced the comments of another Twitter user to Brookdale Community College student Adam Nagel.
“The student has been summarily suspended and will be scheduled for a conduct hearing where further disciplinary action will be taken,” said Avis McMillon, a spokeswoman for the New Jersey school.
Both MacDonald’s and Nagel’s Twitter accounts have been deactivated.
“I’ve said a lot of dumb things, a lot of stupid things. I’ve said things I wish I hadn’t said. But I don’t ever remember in my life, online, in person, in a dream, saying things like that to anyone, or thinking things like that to anyone,” Schilling told The News. “Again, I was a high school boy, college kid. I know how we act and how we think. But if I was ever to utter something like that, my dad would come out of the grave and kill me. This is almost like people saying to a woman who got raped, ‘Well, you were dressed for it.’ Are you kidding me?”
On his blog, Schilling called the Nagel and MacDonald “gutless clowns” who would never have the courage to make the offensive comments face to face.
“A mistake is tweeting once and saying ‘damn, I’m an idiot’ and taking it down. These guys? They’re making conscious choices to cyberbully an amazing and beautiful young woman on the internet, that none of them know by the way, because they don’t like her dad or they somehow think saying words you can teach a 5 year old is tough?” wrote Schilling.
“My right hand to God I promise all of you that tweeted this stuff, the friends around you saying ‘dude that’s hilarious’ and ‘OMG that’s awesome’? Those people? Inside they’re actually thinking ‘what an ass#$!Q’ and ‘holy crap what a piece of trash,’ no matter what they say to your face.
“Ladies? If any of these guys is your boyfriend you’re in for a real rude awakening. Lastly? Not one of these gutless clowns would even think of saying a word of ANY of this in person. Curt.”
Schilling said his original tweet last week — “Congrats to Gabby Schilling who will pitch for the Salve Regina Seahawks next year!!” — drew predictable responses like “Can’t wait to date her!”
But after Schilling, 48, tweeted a humorous follow-up post that he has friends “in or former special forces,” he said the tweets turned sickening.
“I expected to get feedback, ‘Hey dude, I’m going to be hitting on your daughter.’ Whatever. That’s when I typed back, ‘Hey, I know some guys in the special forces.’ I was joking. And the first tweet out was, ‘I’m going to make your daughter’s underwear as red as your sock.’ And I was like, ‘That’s kind of a gloves off. Let’s go,'” Schilling told The News. “The post I made on my blog was probably the 57,000th version of it. My first post was, ‘You mother—-, I’m going to hop in a car and kill you.’ You get that anger when you grit your teeth and realize you’re doing it.
“I just finished chemo and radiation,” Schilling added, referring to his ongoing treatment for mouth cancer. “I’m starting to get saliva back in my mouth. I was gritting my teeth and thinking to myself, ‘I want to break you in half.’ Right after the rage, I said this is going to go one of two ways: either the old Curt Schilling way, where I’m going to say, ‘I’m going to kick your ass,’ and pretty much everybody says, ‘You’re an idiot. Shut up.’ Or I can teach my boys and my daughter a lesson.”
On his blog, Schilling underscored how even during all the years he was an athlete, he never encountered the kind of offensive rants he saw in the recent Twitter posts.
“Now let me emphasize again. I was a jock my whole life. I played sports my whole life. Baseball since I was 5 until I retired at 41. I know clubhouses. I lived in a dorm. I get it,” Schilling wrote. “Guys will be guys. Guys will say dumb crap, often. But I can’t ever remember, drunk, in a clubhouse, with best friends, with anyone, ever speaking like this to someone…”
In one enraged post, he issued a warning: “You pieces of garbage out there who are even starting to think ‘what’s the big deal?’ or ‘I was just joking around’ can stick it. … The real world has consequences when you do and say things about others.”
Schilling — a current ESPN analyst who won fame for his clutch pitching against the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS — posted MacDonald and Nagel’s names and backgrounds on his personal blog after tracing their accounts back to them.
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The pitcher also pleaded with the public to help track down other possible social media offenders who he says harassed his daughter via social media. Schilling also shared on his blog, the links to other stories where bullied girls and women resorted to suicide, including the tragic case of Rebecca Sedwick, who committed suicide in 2013. She was 12.
“This is not a pride thing, where it’s, ‘I’m going to show them.’ One of the defenses of people trying to defend these guys is, ‘You should know this is the world we live in now.’ And my response was, ‘No, it’s not. We can allow it to be that way, but it’s not.’ You want bad to be the norm, then do nothing,” Schilling said Monday night. “Let me be very clear. I don’t know that I could put myself in a place where my daughter would take her life, but if that happened, I’m that father with nothing to lose. This was an attack on my family.”
With Oren Yaniv
