The Rocky Mountain Collegian

Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: News

This is an Aug. 30, 2007, file photo showing Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling delivering a pitch during MLB baseball action against the New York Yankees, at Yankee Stadium in New York. Schilling says he's retiring from baseball. The 42-year-old right-hander, who won World Series championships with Arizona and Boston, announced on his blog Monday, that he's leaving after 23 years with "zero regrets."

BOSTON (AP) - Curt Schilling retired from baseball Monday, ending a career in which he won World Series titles with the Boston Red Sox and Arizona Diamondbacks and was one of the game's most dominant pitchers and grittiest competitors.

The 42-year-old right-hander said on his blog he's leaving after 23 years with "zero regrets." Schilling missed all of last season with a shoulder injury after signing a one-year, $8 million contract.

"The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime," he wrote.

Schilling had surgery last June and had said he might come back in the middle of this season though he was not under contract. He made no reference to his injury on his blog.

He was co-MVP of the 2001 World Series with Randy Johnson while in Arizona. Schilling also won World Series titles with Boston in 2004 and 2007.

"Curt had a great career and made a profound impact on the Red Sox, helping to restore the Red Sox' status as a championship organization," general manager Theo Epstein said in an e-mail to The Associated Press. "He was consistently dominant, and never more so than when it mattered most. Not only for what he did - but for when and how he did it - Curt deserves to be remembered with the all-time greats."

Schilling came to Boston for the 2004 season and helped the team win its first World Series in 86 years, pitching Game 2 of a sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals after a surgical procedure to suture a loose tendon in his right ankle and with blood seeping through his sock. The sock is now in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

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