Why 'Sweet Caroline' makes him ashamed to be a Sox fan

By adamg - 4/16/09 - 1:26 pm

Dan Tobin enumerates a rather lengthy list of reasons, including:

... It has nothing to do with the Red Sox, Fenway, Brian Daubauch, or anything Boston. ...

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sweet caroline

By EM Painter - 4/16/09 - 1:33 pm

#1

Sweet Caroline stuck because it works. You can't tell what piece of music is going to be a hit.

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He attempts to conflate the Pink Hat Era with the popularity of Sweet Caroline in the 8th. It makes no sense as by his own account the timing is off by YEARS between when Sweet Caroline became a regular occurrence and the post-2004 Pink Hat Era started. Pink Hats are there because it's "cool" to be there or someone dragged them along. Most of them probably don't even know Sweet Caroline happens in the middle of the 8th at all. They're not keen to the ways of Fenway, that's what makes them Pink Hats to begin with. Nobody goes to Fenway just for Sweet Caroline or would list that as their "favorite part of the game", a criteria he uses for selecting which people should stop going to the ballpark. 81 times a year, it's a rallying call. A way to drag everyone up off their butt as the Sox have either 3 outs to stop the other team for the win or 6 outs to turn it all around.

If we're winning in the middle of the eighth, then good times never felt So Good, So Good, So Good. If we're not, then wouldn't it be sweet to turn it all around? That'd be So Good, So Good, So Good. It energizes the entire stadium and our next batter steps into the box just as the chorus is winding down for the second time. We could be down by 6, yet the bottom of the eighth at Fenway always sounds like we're winning by 1.

It's not Neil Diamond. It's not the Pink Hats. It's the singularity and solidarity of the whole place coming together for that one last push to the finish line. Tessie doesn't have the same simple lyrics for everyone to sing ("Tessie is the Royal Rooters rally cry...Tessie mumblemumblemumble-eeeeah!..."). It doesn't matter if other people want to do Sweet Caroline. They're not in Fenway in the 8th.

Of all the things I love about Fenway, one of the best is that there isn't incessant prompting during the game to "everybody clap your hands..." or bugling "Charge!" cries or "rally monkeys" or any of the other "crowd participation" whoopie whistles and nonsense that are forced upon pretty much every other ballpark in America. Even Wally knows enough to only show up once or twice a game and only between half innings. Sweet Caroline's message of "So Good" outweighs its ever-so-small tilt towards that kind of crowd prompting that it's worth it once a game, at the end, to get ready for a wild inning and a half of remaining baseball.

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Excellent Dissection

By Suldog - 4/16/09 - 2:48 pm

#3

Kaz = Nail, Head.

Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com

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Yeah, this, especially the last paragraph.

By Spatch - 4/17/09 - 7:42 am

#4

I like Sweet Caroline in the 8th because it's what a tradition should be. Someone up in the PA started playing it cause they liked it and it had enough energy for a late game number, and the fans liked it and the call-and-response, and that was that. It wasn't forced or manufactured by committee or nothing ("Gentlemen! We need an anthem!") It just happened and everybody ran with it.

However, I like it just fine when it's in the ballpark. I will snap if I have to endure once more a local radio station's version with crowd cheers and LET'S GO RED SOX chants dubbed in (and that goes double for the doctored version of Dirty Water)...

...so, in conclusion, Magic 106 sucks out loud.

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Did you have to mention them?

By adamg - 4/17/09 - 8:14 am

#5

Because now I can't get that swooshy "Maaagic 106.7" mini-jingle out of my head. Arrgh.

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In PDX in the '80s

By neilv - 4/17/09 - 9:14 am

#6

It was Magic 107, which, around the time digital tuners started getting popular, was renamed Magic 106.7, with the jingle re-recorded in a way that sounded humorous at the time.

It was the cool Top-40s station that all the grade school kids listened to, and we thought it was our own thing. Then Z100 and their Morning Zoo started, and was the new hot station. We also thought this was our own thing.

Imagine my sadness when I moved to various other cities and found that our supposedly unique local stations were actually prefabricated products, duplicated elsewhere, jingles and everything.

(And later, I learned about evils like Clear Channel, and DJs who pretend to be local but are actually located nowhere near the geographic regions they pretend to be.)

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KMJK

By SwirlyGrrl - 4/17/09 - 9:42 am

#7

KMJK actually was one of the first "magic" stations, going back to the early 80s or earlier. In high school, we used to harass the station owner's daughter about her father's incessant "airborne bubblegum attack" and tease her about her parents secretly brokering an arranged marriage with Boy George and stuff. They must have given up the call letters or sold them in the 90s because a Kansas City station has them since 2000.

There was a Boston-area band who put out an album with a priceless title "Continuous Soft Hits On The Head". When ever I hear "continuous soft hits" on the radio, like, in the dentist's office, I think about that.

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Yeah at least 93.7 Mike FM

By ShadyMilkMan - 4/17/09 - 9:52 am

#8

Yeah at least 93.7 Mike FM makes no bones about it, you can tell just by listening to them that these people took a cookie cutter and created multiple stations with the same format lol. What I did not know, in this case, is that each station is not called Mike FM they all have different male one syllable names associated with them.

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Beautifully Stated! Bravo!

By HenryAlan - 4/17/09 - 8:51 am

#9

I really think the blogger is lost in some sort of semi-self loathing baseball fan universe. His nostalgia for past players and such isn't lost on me, nor is his logic in connecting Boston or baseball pop culture to Fenway activities. But I think he needs to open his mind to the idea that there are other moments of beauty available at a game.

I was lucky enough to be at game 5 of the ALCS last year (best baseball game, ever). Of the dozens of moments of awesomeness found in the last three innings, one that still stands out for me was seeing a 12 year old boy hugging his father during Sweet Caroline. It was Fenway Park, the ALCS, our team's back against the wall, but they were working hard to rally, and the fans were with them completely. The emotion in the stands was unreal. The hug, a boy and his father sharing their love for each other and love for the game, crystallized everything that is special about baseball for me.

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I can't read this blog

By Ron Newman - 4/16/09 - 2:02 pm

#10

in Firefox 2. Some ads, photos, and other stuff overlay the right half of the column, making the entire thing unreadable.

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Ron, I'm sure you know this

By grahams - 4/16/09 - 2:27 pm

#11

Ron, I'm sure you know this and are using FF2 for a specific reason, but FF2 has been "end-of-lifed" by Mozilla and is no longer being supported by them:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

This includes security defects, so upgrade to FF3 if you can!

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I've followed UConn men's

By got2trotlibrarian - 4/16/09 - 2:21 pm

#12

I've followed UConn men's basketball since I was in elementary school and I'd wear a pink UConn hat today because I support the team AND b/c I like the color. I don't need the pink hat to relate to being a fan (or a blue and red one to prove I'm one.)

Why not focus on why you like the Red Sox and enjoy being at Fenway and not spend time being miserable thinking about why a song and some pink, powder blue and green hats makes thousands of other fans happy?

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I concur

By anon (not verified) - 4/16/09 - 3:09 pm

#13

I like the song. I don't always sing it when it's played, but I enjoy watching other people singing it..especially the kids.

I just wish they still opened Fenway up at the end of the 7th. Wasn't it the end of the 7th? It's been awhile.

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Ive been an on and off fan

By ShadyMilkMan - 4/16/09 - 2:47 pm

#14

Ive been an on and off fan for years (and am currently off, I guess I liked em more when I didnt have a job and they werent winning lol.) I do not see the problem, and much prefer this over things like the "Yankees Suck" chant which is kinda disgusting to hear over and over again. It is a positive "tradition" that people really seem to like, please do not be a wet blanket because some of us have lives outside of the game of baseball. In 50 years someone will pull the song and people JUST LIKE YOU are gonna freak out because thats the way it should be and how dare they play this new fangled song during the 8th.

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Sports nerds are the worst

By anon (not verified) - 4/16/09 - 3:30 pm

#15

Sports nerds are the worst nerds.

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Song Written about Caroline Kennedy

By Laura (not verified) - 4/16/09 - 3:36 pm

#16

Neil Diamond recently said he wrote the song for Caroline Kennedy--kind of creepy, but it does establish a Massachusetts connection.

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I loathe Sweet Caroline.

By MaryEllen (not verified) - 4/16/09 - 3:49 pm

#17

Hate, despise, loathe it. I only remember it becoming a huge deal after 2004, which explains the feeling that it's part of the whole "pink-hat" thing. (I hate the pink hats too.)