A first-time procedure lets Curt Schilling make a surprising, effective start.
By MARC TOPKIN
Published October 21, 2004
NEW YORK - The Red Sox made baseball history by being the first team to lose the first three games of a postseason series and come back to force a seventh.
And they needed what appears to be medical history to get there.
The medical procedure that allowed Curt Schilling to pitch as well and as long as he did Tuesday, according to Sox officials, was unprecedented.
Team physician Bill Morgan came up with the idea to use sutures to stabilize the dislocated peroneal tendon in Schilling's right ankle.
After practicing on a cadaver, Morgan and three assistants performed the procedure on Schilling on Monday morning, using three sutures to form what was described as a "tunnel of tissue" to keep the tendon from popping and rubbing across the bone on the outside of Schilling's ankle.
The procedure, done at Fenway Park, took only a few minutes, and Schilling received only a localized anesthetic. He also was given antibiotics to prevent infection. The sutures were removed immediately after the game.
"Although it sounds extreme and we didn't find any cases of it being done before, it was not that risky," Sox general manager Theo Epstein said Wednesday.
The Red Sox weren't sure how long Schilling would be able to pitch, but he had no problems throwing 99 pitches over seven innings, having also received a shot of the painkiller Marcaine. There were some fluids and blood oozing from the small bandage on his ankle, and the red stain on his sock was noticeable as the game went on, but it seemed to further inspire the other Red Sox.
"When I saw blood dripping though the sock and he's giving us seven innings in Yankee Stadium, that was storybook," Boston first baseman Kevin Millar said.
Schilling's tendon is loose because the sheath that normally holds it in place is torn. The instability of the tendon had prevented Schilling from pitching with his normal delivery, and the staff felt that getting it stabilized, even out of its normal groove, would allow him to use the ankle as he normally would to push off.
Schilling experimented with a custom-designed high-top shoe flown in from Reebok's factory in China and used in a Sunday bullpen session, but the medical staff decided to try what Epstein called a "last-ditch scenario." The sutures were not used on the tendon itself, just in the tissue to form a barrier. Schilling went back to his normal shoes to limit irritation.
"Dr. Morgan, (trainer) Jim Rowe, this training staff was just phenomenal, the things they did for me over the last four, five, six days, I would not have gone out there," Schilling said. "I would not have been able to go out there had he not come up with the plan that we ended up executing."
Schilling's injury is bad enough that Morgan said last week a normal person would be fitted for a cast to keep it immobile. Schilling will need surgery after the season and about three months to recover. But he'll get another chance to pitch before then, and they plan to try it again.
"We'll do it again for the World Series," Schilling said.
