Curt Schilling, Baseball Star And Collector Of Nazi Relics, May Run For Congress
Curt Schilling Image by Getty Images
Former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling is considering running for Congress, Politico reported.
In two recent interviews, Schilling said he was adamant about unseating ones of the five Democrats representing his home state of Arizona in the House of Representatives.
“The state is not the state I grew up in,” he wrote in an email to The Arizona Republic. “Making Arizona citizens of EVERY Race, religion and sexual orientation 2nd class citizens to illegal immigrants is about as anti-American as it gets.”
Schilling, a strong supporter of President Trump, is a World Series champion, finding success with the the Arizona Diamondbacks in 2001 and with the Boston Red Sox in 2004. After retirement, he started coming under fire for offensive comments about minorities, including comparing the percentage of Muslims who are extremists to the percentage of Germans in 1940 who were Nazis. The next year, after surmising that Democrats don’t support Israel, he railroaded an interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper to ask him why most Jews support the liberal party.
In a 2015 interview with Boston.com, Schilling shared his collection of World War II memorabilia, which includes Nazi uniforms with swastikas. Some of them appear to have belonged to Hitler’s personal bodyguards. He insisted it was “not a Nazi collection. It’s a collection of World War II stuff.”
“It was a tragically horrible time in the world’s history,” Schilling said of the Holocaust. “I have never done anything to offend anyone. I don’t have a racist bone in my body. People that know me know that. I can’t help what people get offended by. I can’t help how people want to interpret things.”
Trump appeared to have endorsed Schilling for Congress on Tuesday, tweeting: “Curt Schilling, a great pitcher and patriot, is considering a run for Congress in Arizona. Terrific!”
Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at fisher@forward.com, or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher
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