Schilling & Game 6 Cut By ESPN

Last night, ESPN broadcast the terrific 30 For 30 documentary special "Four Days In October," about the historic comeback the Sox pulled off in the 2004 ALCS against the Yankees. ESPN broadcasts it on their family of networks every once in a while, and for me it's always special because Yours Truly and my friends are in it.

But many fans noticed that the part when Curt Schilling and Game 6 comes around, was edited out. Who was just recently fired by ESPN for some controversial comments and Facebook postings he recently made? Yep, Schilling. Oh, what a coincidence.

ESPN explained after the fact that the girls softball game that preceded the show ran into its allotted time, and had to cut something. I understand showing a shorter version for time, but completely cutting out Game 6 is beyond stupid, and makes the network look real petty with the Schilling firing.

What they should have done was either joined it in progress (probably cutting out most or all of Game 4), cut out some of the "talking heads" or just not show the documentary at all.

Listen, ESPN produced the documentary, and can do what they like with it. But to cut out Game 6, arguably the most important game of the series that features the iconic "bloody sock," is really inane. (Plus that cuts most of the scenes with my friends and I as well!)

A friend of mine last night compared this editing to a "Soviet-style scrubbing" of the facts or person who they will no long acknowledge. Good comparison.

I saw this quote about it online this morning, and it sums it all up perfectly (Sorry I don't know exactly who said it): "You can say he is bad, mean, wrong, stupid, whatever, but you can't edit him out of an honest account of what happened in that series. Revisionism almost always goes too far, and if we excluded all the people who said stupid stuff at some point our history books would be two covers with no pages in between."

I can only imagine this will ramp up the war between Schilling and ESPN even more.

Don't ask me how you can leave the following scene out of "Four Days In October". ESPN doesn't want you to enjoy it, but here you can: