Schilling’s Bloody Sock Going on the Block

Heritage Auctions' February sale is shaping up to draw a lot of attention – not to mention money. Already known to be in the sale is Mike Eruzione's Miracle on Ice Collection featuring the jersey and stick used in the famous 1980 Olympic match-up and A Lou Gehrig game-used jersey and cap. Now comes news that the auction will also feature “The Bloody Sock” worn by pitcher Curt Schilling in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series, consigned by Schilling himself. It carries a pre-auction estimate of $100,000-plus.

These and much more will be sold as part of Heritage Auctions’ Feb. 23 Platinum Night Sports event at the Fletcher-Sinclair Mansion (Ukrainian Institute of America) at 2 E. 79th Street (at 5th Ave.).

“This historic Red Sox relic serves as the physical incarnation of the exorcism of ‘The Curse of the Bambino just as the ‘The Buckner Ball’ is the curse’s embodiment,” said Chris Ivy, director of Vintage Sports Memorabilia at Heritage Auctions. “Since we sold ‘The Buckner Ball’ in April of 2012 for almost $420,000, we thought this was a great opportunity to balance the scales and give collectors a chance to decide which moment is worth more.”

Schilling is known to be in a bit of debt, and the sale of this artifact and others will go toward that debt.

Schilling’s world famous Bloody Sock is arguably the most hallowed artifact in Boston Red Sox lore and has been on display in the Baseball Hall of Fame since 2004. A wounded Schilling ignored the advice of the physician who had pieced back together the ragged tendons of his right ankle and took to the mound, first in a crucial Game 6 to stave off American League Championship Series elimination against the hated New York Yankees and then again in Game 2 of the World Series to claim the second victory in a four-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals.

In each television broadcast, the cameras repeatedly locked onto the growing red stain at Schilling's sutured push-off ankle. By the time the Sox had completed their extraordinary eight-game run to turn the tide from a three-game ALCS deficit to a World Series sweep, “The Bloody Sock” was firmly implanted in American sports history as the main prop of an unbelievable script.

“Boston could win every World Series for the next hundred years, but 2004 will still be the one that everybody remembers,” said Ivy. “So I think we’re only just beginning to understand how important this piece is to the legacy of the Red Sox.”