http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/coakley-on-schilling-a-yankee-fan/
Coakley on Schilling: A Yankee Fan?By MICHAEL COOPER
BOSTON – Could the fate of the health care bill, its passage or defeat, hinge on a sports gaffe?
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, the Democrat vying to succeed the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and to cast the 60th vote for the bill, may be about to find out. She is being roundly mocked in this Red Sox-crazy state for mistakenly suggesting in a radio interview that Curt Schilling, the former Red Sox pitcher, is a Yankee fan.
Mr. Schilling was accorded near-heroic status here for guiding the team to victory over their arch-rivals, the Yankees, in a key game in 2004 while his own sock was literally bloody from an ankle injury. The radio exchange was quickly blasted to reporters by gleeful Republicans.
It was Ms. Coakley who brought up baseball in the interview on WBZ News Radio. She noted that her rival, Scott Brown, a Republican State Senator, had been campaigning in Boston Friday with Rudolph W. Giuliani, and she reminded listeners that Mr. Giuliani is a Yankee fan.
The interviewer, Dan Rea, said, “Yeah, but now Scott Brown has Curt Schilling, OK?’’
To which Ms. Coakley replied, “And another Yankee fan.’’
“Schilling?’’ Mr. Rea pressed.
“Yes,’’ she said.
“Curt Schilling a Yankee fan?’’ he persisted.
“No, all right, I’m wrong on my, I’m wrong,’’ she said.
Mr. Schilling, who helped Senator John McCain win the New Hampshire primary in 2008 by campaigning with him there, and who has been supporting Mr. Brown, fired back on his own blog. “I’ve been called a lot of things,’’ he wrote, “but never, and I mean never, could anyone ever make the mistake of calling me a Yankee fan. Well, check that, if you didn’t know what the hell is going on in your own state maybe you could….”
