Gary Thorne: bad guy, probably not. Tool of the Week? Yes.

Baseball announcers need to fill time between pitches and unfortunately, two nights ago, Orioles broadcaster Gary Thorne said something really stupid when he suggested that the blood on Curt Shilling's sock in 2004 was really paint. This will undoubtedly go down as a classic, 'oh fuck, what did I just do?' moment for Mr. Thorne. He is indeed a dumb-ass for coming out with such an asinine statement in front of a huge audience.

The next question is, does Thorne have a history of dumb-ass-ness or was this a one time, dumb-ass moment for him? I don't know. I only know him from his work as a hockey play-by-play caller, where I have always felt he has excelled. I remember well Thorne's call during the 2001 Cup finals as my favorite player, Ray Bourque, finally raised The Stanley Cup overhead, ‘Take that thing and skate it!’

Obviously (and rightfully,) pissed off, Curt Shilling compares Thorne to CHB and several other less than stellar sports writers on his personal site. I don't know if Thorne is that bad. Maybe he is, maybe he isn't but I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt and leaning towards 'isn't'. CHB, along with his chum Ron 'I just ripped you off' Borges, is pretty much up there as high as you can get on the dick-head scale. I don't know if Thorne deserves be placed on the same perch as those guys.

Now that the dust has settled a little bit, my final take on this whole Gary Thorne / Shilling bloody sock thing is that maybe it was just a case of Thorne getting carried away and simply saying something dumb. I compare it to sending out an e-mail that, five seconds later, you wish you could take back. Once you've hit the send button there's no taking it back. You get that sinking feeling in your gut because realize you just fucked up, but it's too late and all you can do is sit back, wait for the shit to hit the fan and then suck it up when the time comes. Thorne has since come out and said the whole thing was a misunderstanding.

Is Gary Thorne really a bad guy? I'd say that's up for debate, but he definitely wins the 'Tool of the Week' award. For what it’s worth I still like the way he calls a hockey game.