Red Sox Legend Was Offered Blank Check By Yankees Prior To Joining Boston
The Boston Red Sox are known as one of the winningest franchises in the modern era, capturing four World Series titles this century.
However, it was not long ago that it felt like the Red Sox were never destined to win it all, especially with the Evil Empire looming in the division.
One of the biggest moves that would eventually turn the tide for Boston was the trade with the Arizona Diamondbacks for Curt Schilling.
It turns out that the deal almost never happened. The established ace had a no-trade clause in his contract and was almost swayed to join the New York Yankees instead.
“One of the things I remember very vividly about the Boston thing is I had the Yankees on my phone in the interim saying ‘Hey listen, just don’t sign there. Let the window run out and when the window runs out we’ll be there Saturday morning and you can fill in the check. We don’t care,'" Schilling told Audacy's "The Bret Boone Podcast."
“I was like ‘This is kind of nice leverage to have’ but at the end of the day, the choice between Boston and New York came down to this: I can go be a Yankee and be a part of World Championship 27, 28, maybe 29, or I can go to Boston and do something no one alive has ever seen before. They said ‘We can’t pay you more than Pedro,' -- But you’re bringing me there to win a World Series so if I help bring the goods I want to get paid for it so I negotiated those things into the deal and I ended up making every penny of that money. We won two and it was everything you thought it could be.”
Schilling signed a two-year $25.5 million extension with a $13 million option in 2007.
He would go on to win the aforementioned pair of World Series rings while cementing himself as a Red Sox Hall of Famer.
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