Curt Schilling believes Trevor Bauer’s career is over.
Schilling appeared on the “PBD Podcast” this week and host Patrick Bet-David was starting to ask about Bauer’s situation when Schilling interjected, “He’s never going to play again.”
The host asked if that was deserved. “No. Absolutely not. No. No,” Schilling said. “Nothing happened!”
Pressed to elaborate, Schilling said, “You know as well as I do, especially when you’re talking about corporations and images, and a bunch of owners are very liberal people, they’re not gonna touch him. Because, sports has gotten to a very uncomfortable place. Professional sports has started to cater to fans who don’t buy tickets.
“If you think about who they’re catering to, they’re catering to the fans who will go to sponsors and boycott their sponsors — not the people who show up at the stadium or the arena or the rink.”
The 2020 AL Cy Young winner was accused last year of choking a woman unconscious and punching her during sex. While Bauer acknowledged having had rough sex with the accuser, he has been adamant that it was consensual. The Los Angeles District Attorney decided not to press charges against Bauer in the case.
Bauer’s attorney alleged that the accuser texted Bauer “involving requests to be ‘choked out’ and slapped in the face” and that “the woman spent the night, and left without incident, continuing to message Mr. Bauer with friendly and flirtatious banter.”
Bauer has sued his accuser — along with Deadspin and The Athletic — for defamation. Bauer’s accuser has also sued him for sexual battery.
“In the strongest possible terms, I deny committing any violation of the league’s domestic violence & sexual assault policy,” Bauer wrote on Twitter at the time. “I am appealing this action and expect to prevail. As we have throughout this process, my representatives & I respect the confidentiality of the proceedings.”
After a series of indefinite suspensions, MLB issued Bauer a two-year ban. Bauer’s appeal of MLB’s two-year suspension is pending.
“I don’t think he’ll ever pitch again,” Schilling reiterated.
He was asked if there’s anything Bauer could do to get back in.
“In this day and age, with the way society is going, it’s not going to get better for him,” Schilling said. “People aren’t suddenly going to start saying, ‘Oh it’s in the past.’ There’s some things that we don’t have second chances for in any capacity — things with children, things with women and abuse. We don’t give second chances to people like that.
“There was no legal basis for them to do this other than he offended Major League Baseball. [The district attorney] didn’t find enough evidence.”
“Let’s just add to the fact, that he’s clearly kind of a d–k,” Schilling said, recalling a time that the two got into a tiff over Bauer cutting his finger on a drone during the playoffs.
Schilling spoke about the “headache” that Bauer would bring, in the form of his teammates being repeatedly asked about him, and did not think there would be an owner who thought the cost-benefit analysis to bringing Bauer in would be worth it.