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Toucher & Rich: Exploring Curt Schilling's Social Media Posts

BOSTON (CBS) -- Curt Schilling was fired from his job as a baseball analyst on ESPN because of a Facebook post he shared and commented on. After the news broke, Rich Shertenlieb decided to put his gloves on and dig deep into the archives of the posts shared by the former All-Star pitcher.

The results were hard to believe.

And so, Rich created a simple game on Thursday's show: "Is This An Actual Curt Schilling Meme Or Not?"

Spoiler alert: Yes, no matter it is, it's really a meme that Curt Schilling shared on Facebook.

For example: "A friend of mine just started his own business in Afghanistan. He's making land mines that look like prayer mats. It's doing well. He says prophets are going through the roof?"

"He put that up on Facebook?" Fred asked. "See there's a difference between having an opinion on an issue and putting that meme up. See, memes in his empty head, in his empty brain, he finds these things ... he's like someone who still reads the Family Circus and laughs."

Fred later wondered, "Why didn't that raise anyone's ire? That seems a lot more divisive than the one he put up that got him fired. I don't want to speak out of school ... but it seems like that might anger some folks."

Another meme found by Rich: "It's got a picture of the confederate flag. It says the red field represents the blood of Christ. The white border represents the protection of God. The blue X represents the Christian cross of St. Andrew, the first disciple of Christ Jesus and patron saint of Scotland. The 13 stars represent the 13 Southern states of secession. Thus, the message in the Confederate battle flag is through the blood of Christ, with the protection of God, we the 13 states are united in our Christian fight for liberty."

(It was real.)

There's also this remarkable tweet:

Though it wasn't a meme, Rich found a story of Schilling discussing his extensive collection of Nazi memorabilia, which is part of a larger World War II collection.

"He's a weird cat," Fred said. "He's in there with those memes. He's in there fighting people on Facebook. He's in there collecting Nazi stuff. Like if you take one of these things and put it alone, maybe you go, 'That's not someone I want to hang out with.' But when you clump it all together, you're thinking, 'Boy, are you lucky you got to throw a ball.' Or maybe you're not; maybe it's the ultimate curse. Maybe he made a deal with some higher power that they were going to let him throw a baseball really well, and then eventually they were going to make him one of the stupidest human beings on the planet. It's like that Twilight Zone twist: Your fame will be your undoing and people are going to know you as this true maniac."

However, Rich did find one Schilling meme that all humans can relate to: "Boobs prove that men can focus on two things at once."

"Oh, that's just fun," Fred said. "And you know he just goes, 'That's really funny. I'm going to share that with everyone.' ... 'Listen, in all seriousness, besides all the Nazi stuff and all the weird Islamic stuff I put up ... I love boobs! It's time for a lighthearted boob meme."

Listen to the full segment below:

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