Curt Schilling to auction bloody sock

Famous people's unwashed underwear. That's where the money's at.

Sensing an opportunity to make some cash, former major leaguer Curt Schilling is auctioning the second-most famous sock of his career, a bloody one worn on his right foot when he pitched Game 2 of the 2004 World Series for the Boston Red Sox. The Stew reported this possibility in October.

As Deadspin nobly points out, it's not THE SOCK ™, the one Schilling wore when he pitched against the New York Yankees in the ALCS during Boston's historic comeback, when the sutures in his surgically repaired ankle ruptured , he bled through and became something of a supernatural figure in Red Sox lore.

Where's that sock? Probably in a landfill in New York somewhere. Schilling and the Red Sox weren't savvy enough to save it before it was discarded in a Yankee Stadium dumpster and taken out with the rest of the icky trash. Who knows what that sock might go for on the open market? All we have is Schilling's second bloody sock. ESPN's Darren Rovell, who has made a cottage industry of tracking the value of everything in the known universe, made a guess as to what it's worth:

It's a tremendous piece of memorabilia that has been in the Baseball Hall of Fame for years. The blood, produced from a sutured tendon in his foot, symbolized the fight for the Boston Red Sox to finally win a title for the first time in 86 years.

Schilling has considered selling the item in the past, first in February 2005. At the time, a Red Sox collector I interviewed said he would bid on it and that he expected the price to soar north of $600,000. Others told me that number was light and that the sock could draw bids above $1 million.

Oh, sure. Schilling's blood-encrusted sock gets into the Hall of Fame but Jeff Bagwell can't. Can Rovell's sources be right? A million bucks for a dirty sock? OK, a famous dirty sock? Schilling obviously hopes so. His other recent big business venture, a video game studio, collapsed due to mismanagement after reportedly producing one title. Will selling a million-dollar sock make up for the losses? It won't begin to cover it, but selling the sock is part of a deal Schilling made to cover his debts.

Side question: In 100 years when cloning is common, will the owner of the bloody sock be able to make Li'l Curt Schillings from the dried DNA in the sock? What an epidemic it would be.

Heritage Auctions reports that the bidding starts in early February, with the hot and heavy auctioning set to wrap up Feb. 23-24.

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