Curt Schilling says he had a heart attack, surgery in November 2011
Curt Schilling revealed that he suffered a heart attack after watching his wife Shonda run a marathon in 2011. (Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling revealed in a Boston Globe article published Sunday that he suffered a heart attack in November 2011 that may have been partially caused by stress related to 38 Studios, his video game company that went bankrupt seven months later.
The 46-year-old was reluctant to provide details to The Globe's Stan Grossfeld, adding that he wished he hadn't revealed that he had the attack in the article.
Schilling said that he felt chest pains on Nov. 6, 2011 while watching his wife, Shonda, run the New York Marathon, but didn't think the issue was serious.
After Shonda finished, the two flew back to Boston and went straight from the airport to a hospital where doctors were waiting, rather than taking an ambulance.
From the report:
It’s not worth having a heart attack over, a visitor tells him.
“Uh, I already did, actually,” says Schilling. “Yeah, I did, a couple of years ago. Nobody knows that, actually.”
A mild one?
“It was a decent one,” he says. “It’s not something . . .”
His voice trails off and his eyes dart around Champions Stadium.
“I had one, and it was dealt with.”
...
Schilling, 46, later said that he wishes he hadn’t mentioned the heart attack. He knows this will be news, and he is reluctant to go into details about it.
“I was in New York with my wife, who was running the New York Marathon,” he said by cellphone while traveling. “I was watching it and I had chest pains.’’
Shonda ran a 4:58:50 in the New York City Marathon on Nov. 6, 2011. Schilling says he waited for her to finish, despite the discomfort he was in.
“I didn’t think it was anything serious,” he says.
They flew back to Boston and went straight from Logan Airport to a Boston hospital, where doctors were waiting for him. No ambulance.
“Ya, as stupid as that was,” Schilling wrote in a text message. “My doctor made it clear that I was very, very, lucky.”
Surgery was performed the next day to insert a stent. The health scare, he says, changed his lifestyle.
Schilling, who won 216 games and two World Series over 20 major-league seasons primarily with the Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox, has worked as a TV analyst for ESPN since 2010.