ESPN removes Schilling from broadcasts for remainder of season
Curt Schilling has been pulled from ESPN's baseball broadcasts for the remainder of the season after authoring a controversial tweet in late August.
ESPN released the following statement regarding the decision:
At all times during the course of their engagement with us, our commentators are directly linked to ESPN and are the face of our brand. We are a sports media company. Curt's actions have not been consistent with his contractual obligations nor have they been professionally handled; they have obviously not reflected well on the company. As a result, he will not appear on ESPN through the remainder of the regular season and our Wild Card playoff game.
The color commentator tweeted an image of Adolf Hitler with statistics comparing the number of Nazi supporters in Germany to the percentage of modern Muslim extremists, then deleted it after only a few minutes. The image also temporarily appeared on his Facebook page.
Schilling was initially suspended for a week following the incident. He was temporarily pulled from both his scheduled Little League World Series assignment and his designated post on the network's "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcast as a result.
Schilling apologized for his remarks via Twitter after learning news of his initial suspension:
I understand and accept my suspension. 100% my fault. Bad choices have bad consequences and this was a bad decision in every way on my part.
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) August 25, 2015
Jessica Mendoza filled in for Schilling on the Aug. 30 "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcast alongside Dan Shulman and John Kruk, but the network hasn't yet announced its plans to replace Schilling for the remainder of the season.