Look, it was blood... OK

It wasn't ketchup nor paint.
It was the
dude's blood. Don't believe me? Go up to Cooperstown and take a sample
from the sock. And while you are at it, clone us 10 more Curt
Schillings so we win the series in 2030 as well. (Never too early to
start a youth movement.)

And even if it wasn't, how does that take away from his game 6 in New York?
Nobody questions he needed a radical medical procedure before pitching in a do or die playoff game against the Yankees in the Bronx.

Nobody questions that a day or two prior he was considered to be done for the year.

And nobody questions that he shut down the Yankees and the Cardinals.
So what exactly are these people trying to take away from him?
That he is a showboat who loves the spotlight on him?

That's the scoop?
STOP THE PRESSES! Also David Wells is fat!

It's part of baseball mythology now... like Gibson grunting while walking up to face Eckersley in the 1988 World Series or Ruth calling his shot or the rat scaring the cameraman in the Green Monster, forcing him to stay on Fisk when he hit the home run in the 1975 World Series.

He had a stitched up ankle and won with it.
Deal with it.

The real mystery is why Torre didn't bunt on a guy whose foot was attached to his leg with a few strings... but thank God he didn't!