Don’t pick on this guy’s daughter

Former Boston Red Sox star Curt Schilling has spoken out. Source: Supplied

Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling takes on daughter's cyberbullies and speaks out. Fox News

BASEBALL legend Curt Schilling has turned troll hunter after his daughter was the target of vicious online abuse.

The former Red Sox pitcher acted swiftly, publicly humiliating his targets and getting some fired from jobs and suspended from university. His internet vigilantism has sparked fierce debate over the line between digital and real life.

It started when the MLB veteran tweeted congratulations to 17-year-old Gabriella on her softball scholarship. As a world-famous sports star and avid social media user, he said he was expecting the inevitable "smart a** college kid" replies, which included "I'll take care of her" and "Can't wait to party with her."

But even experienced Schilling was horrified at the flood of graphic and violent comments that followed.

Gabriella Schilling, 17, was targeted for online abuse after her famous father congratulated her on her sport scholarship on Twitter. Source: Getty Images

"I want to come and play but Gabby wants me to c** and stay," said one. "Teach me your knuckleball technique so I can shove my f*** in your daughter," read another.

In what is now the hallmark of the troll, the tweets mentioned rape, as well as bloody underwear "and pretty much every other vulgar and defiling word you could likely fathom," said Schilling.

So the protective father took action, using his position in the public eye to out the trolls. He identified two in particular, who had made little attempt to conceal their identity.

One was Adam Nagel, a sophomore at Brookdale Community College, who called himself The Sports Guru. The other, username Hollywood, was vice president of the Theta Xi fraternity at Montclair State University, Schilling revealed.

"I was a jock my whole life," he added. "I played sports my whole life. Baseball since I was 5 until I retired at 41. I know clubhouses. I lived in a dorm. I get it. Guys will be guys. Guys will say dumb crap, often. But I can't ever remember, drunk, in a clubhouse, with best friends, with anyone, ever speaking like this to someone …"

Schilling outed the trolls on his blog, leading to firings, suspensions and public humiliation. Source: Facebook

Schilling wished them luck if they were Googled. He added that he had kept every single one of the offensive tweets. "No less than 7 of the clowns who sent vile or worse tweets are athletes playing college sports," he wrote. "I knew every name and school, sport and position, of every one of them in less than an hour."

The 48-year-old father of four got in touch with their coaches and parents, and many were made to write letters of apology. He also published two more tweets by users Justin Time and Jacob Robbins, "to let you internet sleuths have a go."

Commenters on his blog and Twitter users began circulating the names of Nagel and the Montclair student, Sean Macdonald, along with their mobile phone numbers, email addresses and social media account details.

MacDonald, who worked part-time selling tickets for the Yankees, was fired, and Nagel was suspended from university. All their social media accounts have been deleted.

The father of four, pictured with wife Shonda, is unrepentant. Source: Getty Images

Justin Time was identified as Liam Cronin, a camp counsellor from Huntington, New York. Jacob Robbins was identified variously as a student at St Ambrose University in Iowa, as a San Jose State student and as someone called Ben Cohen. Two days later, he released another name, which received the same treatment.

Schilling's campaign made headlines nationwide. Some applauded him for speaking out against verbal abuse on social media. Others expressed concern over the witch-hunts, and Schilling's "doxxing" of the trolls, which means revealing personal information online, and is illegal.

Cronin went so far as to reveal himself on Schilling's blog, explaining that his comments about Gabby being "passed around" only referred to "sluttiness", not rape.

"I simply was trying to piss off curt schilling because I think he's a moron," he wrote, adding that Schilling's fans had called his college demanding he be kicked out, his past employers to make sure he is black-listed for life and his parents, to tell them what a terrible job they did.

The 48-year-old says there's no longer a line between our online and "real-life" selves. Source: Supplied

Schilling is largely unrepentant, telling the New York Post that there's no longer any distinction between our online and offline lives. "People are saying, 'Hey, Curt Schilling called out people on Twitter, and they got in trouble in real life.' Twitter now IS real life — Facebook, Instagram, all of it."

Schilling says he is done with naming names, at Gabby's request, although she told People magazine she didn't feel too sorry for her trolls. "It's really sad that one thing they said could cost them their entire career on a sports team or their job, but I think it's even sadder that they don't think that should have happened."

Schilling's act is the latest in a line of social media shaming, which saw Justine Sacco vilified for a tweet about AIDS, Lindsay Stone go into hiding after a tastless joke at a cemetery and Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice lose endorsements after using a gay slur. Brisbane tech blogger Alanah Pearce turned the tables on her trolls inNovember by contacting their mothers.

The internet offers opportunities both for verbal abuse and for the backlash. How do we decide what is right?

The father-turned-accidental-vigilante summed up his position on his blog: "Gabby I know you're likely embarrassed and for that I apologise. But as we have talked about, there is no situation ever in your life, where it's OK for any 'man' to talk about you, or any other woman this way.

"This is so far off the radar it's pathetic. The ignorance and pathetic lack of morals or of any integrity is astounding.

"These aren't thugs, tough guys or bad asses, these aren't kids who've had it rough, they aren't homeless or orphans, these are pretty much ALL white, affluent, college attending children, and I mean children.

"It truly is time this stopped. I don't know where it started because it sure as hell didn't happen much when we were growing up."

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