Curt Schilling has an interesting pick for who won the first Democratic debate

Following along on social media during multiple big, live, televised events never fails to provide a cornucopia of viral opinions. At one point during the Mets-Dodgers NLDS game and the Democratic Presidential Debate on CNN on Tuesday night I swear the Twitterati went crazy when Don Mattingly let Bernie Sanders hit in the seventh inning, and don’t even get me started on the response to Clayton Kershaw’s foreign policy plan when it comes to Russia. Wait…

As many sports fans and wanna-be wonks showed on Tuesday night, playoff baseball and a political debate is a two-screen viewing situation. Clearly that was the case for ESPN’s resident wanna-be wonk Curt Schilling, who spent his time on social media Tuesday night vacillating between baseball analysis and his usual brand of biting political commentary.

Needless to say, the tweet got a lot of people talking, and brought back the question of why Schilling continues to defy the rules ESPN has put out for employees using social media.

The answer to that has never been clearer: Schilling doesn’t care.

The former star pitcher turned analyst turned lightning rod probably expects ESPN to let him go after this season, as he reportedly has one year left on his contract and with the positive buzz the Worldwide Leader has gotten around the promotion of Jessica Mendoza—and the equal if not greater amount of negative publicity they’ve received over Schilling’s social media posts—it doesn’t take a genius to suspect ESPN will move on in a few weeks when the news will make less of a splash.

That said, ESPN pulled Schilling off the air through the regular season and Wild Card round after his last round of social media missteps, only to stuff him back on studio programming during the playoffs when they could have easily left him at home until making a decision on his future after the World Series. The simple fact ESPN put Schilling back on the air could send a message that no matter what he does online, ESPN is too afraid to fire him, for fear that the backlash from Schilling supporters could—read: would—far outweigh the backlash they got from his detractors.

The more Schilling tweets and posts on Facebook—the more he defies the edict from ESPN’s brass to keep a low political profile—the more he dares his employers to do something.

That, and the more fun the internet can have with him.

https://twitter.com/JohntheConquero/status/654138043604017153

While most of Schilling’s comments, retweets and mentions were referencing Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton or top contender Bernie Sanders, Schilling did make sure to sneak in some hot-button commentary on fringe candidate and debate participant Lincoln Chafee between at-bats of the baseball game.

https://twitter.com/TableOfFriendsh/status/654061584600334336

That retweet by Schilling didn’t go exactly according to plan when this was one of several replies.

https://twitter.com/Vinsanity275/status/654124353332776960

The game of chicken between Schilling and ESPN will only become more of a story as the presidential campaign season heats up. ESPN surely knows if they dump Schilling early, he will saunter into a job at Fox Sports, where embracing debate and creating controversy seems to be the new business model for competing with ESPN.

That, or maybe Schilling will follow in the footsteps of Craig James and run for office himself, letting ESPN totally off the hook for his contract. Just for a moment let’s imagine a Trump-Schilling ’16 ticket. The social media campaign would be (Trump voice)… huuuuuuuuge.