Amid controversy, former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has declined the team’s invitation to take part in its celebration of the 2004 championship at the team’s home opener on April 9, according to reports on Tuesday.

On Monday, the Red Sox announced that they would honor the late Tim and Stacy Wakefield and the 20th anniversary of the 2004 championship team before their first home game against the Orioles. As part of the announcement, the team made a point to note that “all members” of the 2004 team were invited to the ceremony with participants being announced in advance of April 9.

Schilling, who angered the Wakefield family and other former teammates by publicly disclosing Wakefield’s private cancer battle days before his death last September, did not want his appearance at the home opener to serve as a distraction from honoring Wakefield’s memory, a source said.

There was some debate, at least publicly, over whether the Red Sox would invite Schilling after the backlash after making public the Wakefields’ private battle with cancer on a podcast on Sept. 27. On Sept. 28 – with the Wakefields’ permission – the Red Sox issued a statement noting that the information had “been shared publicly without their permission” and that the health of both was a deeply personal matter they intended to keep private.”

Three days later, Tim Wakefield died unexpectedly weeks after undergoing surgery following a brain cancer diagnosis. Stacy Wakefield died Feb. 28 after battling pancreatic cancer.

Schilling, who pitched for the Red Sox from 2004 to 2007, has often been the subject of controversy in his post-playing days. He has taken a number of extreme political positions that have led to public backlash, and in 2016, was fired from his position as an analyst at ESPN for “unacceptable” conduct after sharing an anti-transgender post on Facebook.

The 57-year-old also made headlines in 2022 by asking the Baseball Writers Association of America to remove his name from the Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for his 10th and final attempt at induction in January 2023. That request was declined; he was not inducted the following year.

Schilling has participated in team festivities at Fenway Park numerous times since retiring, including at the 2019 home opener when the 2018 championship team got its rings. He was inducted into the Red Sox Hall of Fame in 2012.

RED SOX PROSPECT Miguel Bleis entered 2023 ranked No. 88 on Baseball America’s Top 100 list. But the exciting center fielder, then 19, was limited to only 31 games because he underwent surgery in June for a left shoulder subluxation.

He batted only .230 with a .282 on-base percentage and .325 slugging percentage in 142 plate appearances for Low-A Salem.

“It was a difficult year,” Bleis said through translator Carlos Villoria Benítez. “There’s so many expectations when you’re a prospect and all the eyes are on you and you want to perform. So it was a little bit frustrating for me not to be able to compete the whole year. But at the same time, I see the positive side of it. I realized my body wasn’t strong enough. So that’s what I worked on during my rehab and offseason — to prepare my body to be able to compete for a full year here in the U.S. So now I feel like I’m in a better position than I was last year. And hopefully everything will go well this year.”

Bleis transformed his body during his rehab. He’s listed at 6-feet, 170 pounds. But Bleis said he’s now approximately 6-foot-2, 203 pounds.

“When I was doing my rehab, I needed to get stronger. I needed to get my arm stronger. And that’s when everything started,” he said.

Baseball America ranks Bleis, who turned 20 on March 1, Boston’s No. 5 prospect entering 2024.

He said his main goal this season is to stay healthy. He also wants to do a better job controlling the strike zone.

“Everybody knows that sometimes I’m overly aggressive. That’s not a secret for anybody,” he said. “But yeah, for this year my focus is going to be to get one pitch I can do damage with, get one pitch in the zone that I can really do damage with and not chasing pitches.”

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