Curt is ready? Gooooooood. It will be so much sweeter

If you took everything Curt Schilling said yesterday and boiled it down to a slogan he could wear on a T-shirt, it would probably go something like this:

''I'm Back . . . and Somebody's Going to Pay."

That's a considerably sunnier message than the one Schilling was wearing a day earlier, on one of those vulgar novelty T-shirts he likes to wear in the privacy of the clubhouse and would require the services of a proctologist if taken literally. That he wore it Friday, with newspaper photographers clicking away and TV cameras rolling, is their problem, he said.

''It was a closed workout," he said. ''I wasn't trying to send a message to somebody. Must have been a slow news day."

He was clearly in the message business yesterday, when he emerged from the clubhouse at the Red Sox minor league training facility wearing a black T-shirt that read, ''Cowboy Up for Christ" on the back, took a seat on a bench in front of a phalanx of cameras, and proclaimed himself as fit as he has been in two years.

''I'm expecting to go out and do what I expected to go out and do in 2004," said the man who delivered a World Series title two years ago. ''I feel good, my arm feels great, my ankle feels good. There are no real health issues for me, knock on wood, right now, and I'm just looking to moving forward."

If you are inclined to make an issue about whether Schilling or newcomer Josh Beckett will get the ball on Opening Day, no point in stopping at Schilling's locker. The 39-year-old righthander, who spent a major chunk of his morning getting acquainted with Beckett, made it clear he is proceeding under the assumption that he will be on the hill in the Ballpark at Arlington when the Sox open the season April 3 against the Texas Rangers.

The only Yanks I wouldn't be happy to see open against him are Pavano or Wright. They give me that Contreras feeling as yet.
The best thing you can ever be, is underestimated.