Former Major League Baseball pitcher Curt Schilling took justice in his own hands tracking down and exposing the identities of two Twitter users for posting sexually explicit comments about his 17-year-old daughter. Both men have since been served with disciplinary actions.
The ordeal began after proud-dad Schilling congratulated his daughter via Twitter for being accepted to pitch for the Salve Regina University women's softball team. While many of the responses were congratulatory, and others good-natured ribbing, the crude words cut Schilling deep as he detailed on his blog, 38 Pitches:
[T]weets with the word rape, bloody underwear and pretty much every other vulgar and defiling word you could likely fathom began to follow.
Now… I was a jock my whole life. I played sports my whole life. Baseball since I was 5 until I retired at 41. I know clubhouses. I lived in a dorm. I get it. Guys will be guys. Guys will say dumb crap, often. But I can’t ever remember, drunk, in a clubhouse, with best friends, with anyone, ever speaking like this to someone…
Schilling was able to identify the users of both Twitter accounts as hailing from New Jersey: Adam Nagel, a broadcast student attending Brookdale Community College, and Sean MacDonald, a student at Montclair State University and Yankees ticket seller. Nagel was suspended from school for his actions, and MacDonald was fired from his position and his Twitter account deactivated.
Schilling said he was able to find out everything he needed to know to find these guys in less than an hour. He said there were others, too.
"No less than 7 of the clowns who sent vile or worse tweets are athletes playing college sports," Schilling wrote. "I know every one of their names, their parents, where they go to school, what they do, what team they are on, their positions, stats, all of it. I had to do almost nothing to get ANY of that information because it is all public."
With that information, Schilling realized he could be at their home addresses within four hours, spurring this warning:
This is a generation of kids who have grown up behind the monitor and keyboard. The real world has consequences when you do and say things about others. We’re at a point now where you better be sure who you’re going after.
Schilling explains that he is used to being the target of slander but can't accept that his daughter bared the brunt this time:
I’m a Republican. I’m a former Red Sox. I have a nasty habit of talking, a lot, about anything anyone asks me and totally unconcerned about giving you my opinion. You will never question where I stand, right or wrong agree or disagree on anything.
I am completely unafraid to get into a ragging war with anyone. Win or lose I’ll give as good as I get:)
I have zero issues being made fun of. It’s part of living and playing sports your whole life and when you’re built like I am you need to develop a defensive strategy early in life.
So I look at it like this. Democrats, Yankee fans, people that don’t like the sound of my voice, that’s a pretty big group.
Those folks for the most part don’t like me even a little bit.
Democrats for their own reasons, Yankee fans for theirs and the rest of them hate me for who I am or what I say, and that’s not going to change.
The amount of vitriol I’ve heard is not an issue. I am sure I’ll hear more.
But I have to ask, is this even remotely ok? In ANY world? At ANY time?
In a follow up blog post on Tuesday, Schilling addressed those who were angry that he mentioned his political affiliation and those that said he should just "get off Twitter" if he is offended. But, he said, "That will not make [cyber-bullying] go away."
"We don’t need the FCC, it’s not Twitters, Facebook, Hulu, Youtube, Instagram, Vine or any other social networking services’ fault," Schilling wrote. "Human beings are at fault and there is absolutely NO reason to not hold any and every one of them accountable."
Schilling charged:
You don’t need money, you don’t need celebrity to out these toolboxes. Just a desire to take a bully in front of the public. Nothing a phony tough guy is more scared of than being outed I bet. Let’s find out.
And with that, Schilling included the latest vile message aimed at his daughter as chum in the water for those "internet sleuths" to devour and expose another "phony tough guy."
