Publicly, Schilling will say the right things, that his priority is to pitch for and help Arizona win. He will say that if Arizona wanted to trade him, the only place he'd want to pitch would be Philadelphia. He will talk about what an honor it would be to start the first game at Philadelphia's new stadium, but qualify those remarks by saying it wouldn't be any more of an honor than pitching every fifth day for a great franchise like Arizona.

What Schilling says privately may be a little different. He's likely to tell people whom he is close to in the Phillies organization how much he'd like to return to the team, and urge them to keep the topic fresh in the minds of club decision makers, just in case the Diamondbacks decide they can't contend this year and look to make changes.

Last week in Arizona, Schilling planted acres of seeds in the ears of Phillies personnel. One person who spoke with Schilling said the pitcher even went so far as to suggest two players the Phils could trade to Arizona for him.

This seed-planting started last fall, when Schilling was in Philadelphia for his charity golf tournament. He brought up the topic of waiving his no-trade clause and returning to Philadelphia in front of manager Larry Bowa and pitching coach Joe Kerrigan.