The inevitable Schilling apology...

After making an absolute ass of himself by alleging that Barry Bonds cheated on his wife and his taxes, Curt Schilling has issued the inevitable apology. Here is the key sentence in the apology:

"Regardless of my opinions, thoughts and beliefs on anything Barry Bonds it was absolutely irresponsible and wrong to say what I did."

There is obviously nothing wrong with a person criticizing Barry Bonds for using steroids, and there certainly is more than enough evidence on which to base an allegation that Bonds used steroids, but why go after the guy's family life? What possible relationship does that have to the steroids issue or to Bonds' status as a baseball player?

The only explanation is that Schilling hates Bonds with the same fury that characterizes one of his fastballs.

But why does he hate Bonds so much? They've never been teammates. They were on division rivals when Schilling played in Arizona, but I don't remember any confrontation between them.

The answer, I think, is that Schilling views himself as a guardian of the game and is offended that Bonds would disrespect the game and its history by taking performance enhancing drugs that help him assault some of the game's most hallowed records. There's nothing wrong with that, and, indeed, the game needs its guardians. The problem is that Schilling has no filter, so he pretty much says anything that comes to his mind, and some pretty dumb things enter his cranium.

So, Curt, we have a proposal for you: continue to try to protect the game, but do it only through written statements. That way you avoid having to wave the white flag every time you say something stupid, which is far too often.