Curt Schilling, who announced last month on the WEEI/NESN Jimmy Fund Telethon that his mouth cancer is in remission, is headed back to work.
The ex-Red Sox pitcher, who stepped away from his role as an ESPN baseball analyst when diagnosed with cancer last February, will resume his duties Thursday night when he appears on the 10 p.m. version of the network's Baseball Tonight show on ESPN2, and he is scheduled to be a regular Thursday night contributor. He will not appear as an in-game analyst on Sunday Night Baseball -- he was named to that broadcast team last offseason prior to his illness -- until he feels ready to travel.
Schilling, 47, says his battle with the disease was "[mentally], physically, the most difficult eight months of my life. Certainly the most painful."
He made the comments in an interview that will appear Tuesday night on ESPN.
Schilling blames his cancer on chewing tobacco.
"The challenging part is, much like the company I ran" -- referring to 38 Studios, the video-game enterprise that went bankrupt in 2012 -- "this is my fault. I chewed tobacco for thirtysomething years. I was warned and warned year after year, and I didn't pay attention," he said in the interview.