HAS SHE EVER EVEN BEEN TO NEW ENGLAND?:

Foul Ball: Coakley Calls Schilling ‘Another Yankee Fan’ (Matthew Rose, 1/16/10, WSJ: Washington Wire)

In a local radio interview Friday, Ms. Coakley dismissed Curt Schilling, the former Red Sox pitcher and supporter of her Republican opponent, Scott Brown, as “another Yankee fan” in the vein of former Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani.

A startled silence hung in the air. Mr. Schilling famously vanquished the Yankees in a 2004 playoff game in which he appeared to bleed into his sock.

“Schilling?” asks the interviewer.

“Yes,” Ms. Coakley replies.

“Curt Schilling. A Yankee fan?

“No. All right. I’m wrong on my…I’m wrong.”

“The Red Sox great pitcher of the bloody sock?”

“Well, he’s not there any more.”

In Boston, obviously, sport isn’t a matter of life or death. To quote Liverpool’s great manager Bill Shankley, it’s more important than that.