Curt Schilling's comments on Hillary Clinton land him in hot water with ESPN

May 16, 2012: Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, center, is followed by members of the media as he departs the Rhode Island Economic Development Corporation headquarters, in Providence, R.I. (AP) (AP2012)

ESPN is being tight-lipped about how the sports media giant will handle loose-lipped commentator and ex-major league pitcher Curt Schilling, who said during a radio interview that Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton “should be buried under a jail” for her alleged handling of classified information.

An ESPN statement viewed by The Boston Herald only said “we are addressing it.”

Schilling, the loquacious conservative who has landed in hot water with ESPN before, shared his opinion about Clinton and Republic front-runner Donald Trump during a Tuesday interview with Kansas City radio station 610 Sports. At one point Schilling was asked if Clinton should be sent to prison for her alleged conduct with sensitive emails.

“I hope she does,” Schilling said. “If I’m going to believe, and I don’t have any reason not to believe, that she gave classified information on hundreds, if not thousands, of emails on a public server after what happened to General [David] Petraeus, she should be buried under a jail somewhere.”

Petraeus last year pleaded guilty to mishandling classified information. He did not go to prison.

“If she’s allowed to get to the general election before she’s in prison, I’ll be stunned and upset,” Shilling said.

On Trump, Schilling mocked the business mogul’s “Make America Great Again” slogan and his plan to build a border wall.

“Listen, he hasn’t elaborated, like, on two sentences for a policy,” Schilling said. “’We’re going to build a wall and Mexico is going to pay for it.’ OK, how? ‘Well, I’ll tell you later.’”

A former star pitcher who won a World Series with the Arizona Diamondbacks and two World Series with the Boston Red Sox, Schilling has previously made controversial statements in public and on social media.

An ESPN memo released by the company two months ago noted that personalities should “refrain from political editorializing.”

That directive came on the heels of Schilling’s August tweeting of a meme purporting to compare the percentage of Muslims who are extremists to the percentage of Germans who were Nazis in 1940. “The math is staggering when you get to true #’s,” he wrote above the image.

ESPN suspended Schilling soon afterward for the remainder of baseball’s regular season and throughout the postseason.

“Curt’s actions have not been consistent with his contractual obligations, nor have they been professionally handled; they have obviously not reflected well on the company,” ESPN said at the time.

He had been a part of ESPN’s main “Sunday Night Baseball” announcing booth, however, following the Nazi meme he was moved to the less prestigious Monday night crew.