Shyzer.com

I’ll admit, on two occasions I’ve had people from SeattleMariners.com come and visit my, albeit incomplete, Mariners section. I even caught a screen capture of one of their visits. I have no idea what they were looking for, but it made me smile that at least one person in the Mariners office knew I was a fan. I don’t really care if it was some desk clerk whose job is probably to check all their referrals and make sure they aren’t slandering the team, but still, in my head I can imagine it was the General Manager checking to see what my opinion was on one of the horrendous signings he made this off season. But having unknown people from your favorite team and talking personally with an All-Star and possible future Hall of Famer are quite different.

I didn’t catch wind of this until about a week after it happened, but it turns out that Boston Red Sox fans may have played a part in getting All-Star pitcher Curt Schilling to accept a trade to Boston last November. In the wee hours of the morning after Thanksgiving, Schilling went to the mlb.com Red Sox message board and posted this.

He then went over to www.sonofsamhorn.com (which is a huge BoSox message board) and logged into the chat room. After confirming his identity, he proceeded to chat with about 24 Red Sox fans for a few hours. He has sense made many appearances on both message boards after accepting the trade.

So here we are: Thanksgiving night 2003. Schilling stumbled into a SOSH chat room at 2:30 in the morning and found those 24 fans in there, which is my favorite part of the story. Only the guys from SOSH would be chatting about the Sox at 2:30 A.M. on Thanksgiving night. After he introduced himself, they verified his identity with a barrage of questions, then spent the rest of their time pleading for him to come to Boston. He ended up staying in the chat room past 4 o’clock, talking about anything and everything, from baseball to the comparative hotness of the Olsen twins to who’d win in a fight between a shark and a bear. (Schilling went with the bear.)

The next day was even stranger: After Schilling landed a SOSH account and word spread with the members, Friday afternoon, the deadline for Schilling to accept his Boston trade, turned into a pitch session from the SOSH members to Schilling. Everyone had their say.

Now here’s where it gets crazy. The deadline comes…and Schilling accepts the trade. Better yet, he specifically mentions the passion of the SOSH guys as one of the main reasons he decided to play in Boston. Unbelievable. Can you remember any other instance of fans directly influencing a player like this? Can you remember any other player seeking out the input of fans like this? I mean, unless you’re a Yankees fan, how can you not root for Curt Schilling now? Shouldn’t every player be like this? And if they were like this, wouldn’t you like sports a little more than you already do? Sure, it’s nearly impossible to determine an athlete’s character from what we read and hear. But Schilling seems like the exception. Passionate, knowledgeable, the kind of guy who just gets it. Sports fans aren’t asking for much these days, just give your best, take nothing for granted, show us some appreciation and we’re happy.

It’s the kind of thing that makes you post on a message board when you’re supposed to be on vacation. It makes you dream about Opening Day when you’re bracing through an ice storm, or when you’re stuck 3,000 miles away from your favorite team. It makes you dream ahead to next October…

And so it begins. Again.