Curt Schilling, once my hero, applauds shirt that calls for my hanging

I loved Curt Schilling.

I loved him in the way that only a teenage baseball fan can love a great baseball player, with a giddy mixture of pride, ownership, devotion and awe. His Game 6 performance in the 2004 ALCS remains one of the most breathtaking athletic feats I've ever seen, and to this day I defend it.

It wasn't ketchup. His ankle was hurt. He fought through the pain, unimaginable, excruciating pain, and got the Boston Red Sox a win, in a game that I can remember to this day. I know where I watched the game, who I was sitting next to. I remember the feeling of watching him pitch, the pride, the joy. The disbelief. For a kid from New England, that game was a highlight in what was - maybe to this day - the best three weeks of my life. Schilling was my hero, and I will never, ever forget what he did for me.

On Monday night, Curt Schilling sent out a tweet that featured a shirt calling for the hanging of journalists. He sent it out with the caption "OK, so much awesome here." He's since deleted it, but here you go:

I'm used to being let down by athletes. Stepping into the role as a sports journalist, I've gotten to peek behind the curtain and see that this whole hero-making thing with athletes is ridiculous and silly. People I grew up worshipping turn out to be jerks. Others cheat. Some commit crimes.

But with most of these athletes, my disappointment comes with a bit of empathy. Some were pressured into making bad decisions. Others were never taught how to be adults, pampered from a young age and handed too much money too quickly. Others surrounded themselves with the wrong people, got hooked on the wrong drugs, whatever.

With Schilling, this is different. This is a hero of mine applauding a shirt that calls for my murder. He's since said it was sarcasm, comparing it to a South Park joke. He and all the Twitter eggs will undoubtedly call us journalists out for being oversensitive, saying we're actually the problem.

That's fine. I don't actually think Schilling or any of his dwindling followers are actually going to hang me. I will sleep well tonight, no matter what happens in this election, just glad that it's over and (hopefully) the rhetoric of Schilling and all the other sad people will calm down a little bit.

On second thought, you know what? I do feel for Schilling. To become this much of a caricature of yourself, to have hollowed yourself out so completely that you feel the need to pander to an increasingly more fearful, violent, small following … it's sad. It's important to remember that Schilling has been humiliated since that 2004 World Series. He heroically fought through cancer, only to see the goodwill that came with that evaporate. He had a company go bankrupt and was fired by ESPN, seen his support among fans like me, diehard fans who worshipped him, shrivel up and die.

That must hurt. That must make a t-shirt calling for my hanging seem pretty funny, a little jab at all the people who humiliated him on the way down.

Soon, Schilling will be featured more regularly on Breitbart, the alt-right website. Then he will launch his Senate campaign against Elizabeth Warren in Massachusetts, the place he was once a hero to millions of people just like me, and now is not.