Curt Schilling is firing back at cyber bullies who insulted his 17-year-old daughter. According to the New York Daily News , the disheartening ordeal, which reportedly took place on Feb. 25, started with a simple congratulatory tweet. The ex-Red Sox pitcher took to Twitter with an announcement in reference to his daughter, Gabby. Apparently, she’s a chip off the old block because she’s been accepted to Salve Regina College with an offer to play softball next spring. The outstanding announcement quickly began circulating on the social media network. Unfortunately, Gabby’s moment blemished due to a number of crude, insensitive comments by several Twitter users.
Congrats to Gabby Schilling who will pitch for the Salve Regina Seahawks next year!!
— Curt Schilling (@gehrig38) February 25, 2015
Instead of just posting congratulatory tweets, some Twitter users decided to post highly inappropriate sexual remarks. According to The Blaze , Gabby and her father both received an overwhelming number of shocking, horrific responses. He recently spoke with New York Daily News where he recounted the incident.
“I expected to get feedback, ‘Hey dude, I’m going to be hitting on your daughter.’ Whatever. That’s when I typed back, ‘Hey, I know some guys in the special forces.’ I was joking. And the first tweet out was, ‘I’m going to make your daughter’s underwear as red as your sock.’ And I was like, ‘That’s kind of a gloves off. Let’s go,’” Schilling said. “The post I made on my blog was probably the 57,000th version of it. My first post was, ‘You mother—-, I’m going to hop in a car and kill you.’ You get that anger when you grit your teeth and realize you’re doing it.”
Needless to say, Schilling was extremely outraged. Based on the crude nature of the offensive comments, he definitely had to calm down before responding! So, on March 1, Schilling posted a lengthy response defending his daughter on his personal blog 38 Pitches . Although many users opted to post vulgar tweets, two of the men were specifically singled out – Sean MacDonald, time Yankees ticket seller, and Adam Nagels, a radio disc jockey at Brookdale Community College, reports SBNation . His angry post also includes a number of screenshots with obscene tweets posted by the two men. The jaw-dropping messages are quite disturbing, especially since its in reference to an under-age female still considered a child by law.
“If you are a dad this is something you well know already, if you are a dad with a daughter this is likely to get your blood going.”
The angry father addressed the horrific comments and also cited the distinct difference between a lapse in judgment and intentional actions. He challenged both the Yankees franchise and Brookdale Community College, asking if they supported such behavior. He also included a message for anyone who contemplates insulting his daughter again.
“A mistake is tweeting once and saying ‘damn, I’m an idiot’ and taking it down. These guys? They’re making conscious choices to cyber bully an amazing and beautiful young woman on the internet, that none of them know by the way, because they don’t like her dad or they somehow think saying words you can teach a 5 year old is tough?” he wrote.
“The Sports Guru”? Ya he’s a DJ named Adam Nagel (DJ is a bit strong since he’s on the air for 1 hour a week) on Brookdale Student Radio at Brookdale Community College. How do you think that place feels about this stud representing their school? You don’t think this isn’t going to be a nice compilation that will show up every single time this idiot is googled the rest of his life? What happens when a potential woman he’s after googles and reads this?”
“The other clown? He’s VP of the Theta Xi fraternity at Montclair State University. I gotta believe if Theta Xi is cool with a VP of one of their chapters acting like this I’d prefer to have no one I know in it. Also, does anyone attending Montclair State University have a student handbook? If so can you pass it along because I am pretty sure there are about 90 violations in this idiots tweets.”
“You pieces of garbage out there who are even starting to think ‘what’s the big deal?’ or ‘I was just joking around’ can stick it…. The real world has consequences when you do and say things about others.”
As a result of Schilling’s angry post, MacDonald has been fired by the Yankees. Brookdale Community College also issued a statement in reference to Nagel’s behavior. Local police are also investigating the matter.
“The student has been summarily suspended and will be scheduled for a conduct hearing where further disciplinary action will be taken,” said Avis McMillon, a spokeswoman for Brookdale Community College.
Incidents like this should make social media users think twice about the content they share.
[Photo by Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images]