Tomorrow night, I’ll be seeing my first live and in person Red Sox game of the season, a make up for the rained out Patriots Day game. The weather forecast is great – in the 70’s, no rain – which is quite a bit different than the weather on Patriots Day, which featured temps in the upper 40’s, soaking rain, and headwinds in whatever direction you happened to be walking or running in.
Throughout the season, I watch a bit of pretty much every game, usually flipping back and forth between the talking heads on MSNBC and the talking heads on NESN, which broadcasts the Red Sox. Sometimes – if the news just gets overwhelming – I’ll stick with the full game. If a game goes extras, and I end up giving up on it (especially if it’s an extra innings West Coast game), I’ll typically check on the score if I get up in the middle of the night.
But there’s nothing like seeing a game up close and personal at Fenway Park.
Yes, I know that most of the seats aren’t comfortable. I’m only 5’7” and if I’m in the bleachers, my knees are pressed up against the seat in the row in front of me. It takes forever to exit the ballpark postgame, those too-few exits obviously built for a time when folks weren’t always in such a rush to get to where they’re going after. And don’t get me going on the cost of the concessions. My mother fed a family of seven for a week on what you pay for a couple of hot dogs, a soda, and some Cracker Jacks.
But there’s still something about seeing a game live, especially at a park so steeped in tradition and, for me, memories that date back to my first game in July 1960. (Sox beat the Indians, 6-4. Ted Williams homered.) Love it.
I also like the singing.
Even though very few people sing along with the national anthem, I do. So does my sister Trish. Rather than have the Star Spangled Banner belted (or dragged or screeched) out by the 12 year old from New Hampshire or the singing firefighter from Brockton, I wish they’d encourage the crowd to sing. (A few years back, I wrote to the then-president of the Red Sox, and he responded by having a sing-along the next game Trish and I attended. We were announced on the PA, and it was fun – but would have been more gratifying if more of the folks around us had chimed in.)
I also like singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame during the seventh inning stretch.
If, during the game, they play the Dropkick Murphy’s Shipping Up to Boston, I’m in. Put me in, Coach, if that comes up, too.
When the Red Sox win, I like singing along with Dirty Water. And if it takes long enough to exit the park – which it often does – I like singing along with the Dropkick’s Tessie.
And I also like Sweet Caroline, which for the past 20 years or so, the Sox have played between the top and the bottom of the eighth.
But a lot of people despise this tradition, and the other day, the annual let’s-get-rid-of-Sweet-Caroline article ran in The Boston Globe.
The anti-Sweet Caroliners accuse anyone of liking this song of being pink hats, the sneering name applied to those who come to games because it’s a thing, fair-weather fans who don’t know the difference between a bat and a ball, let alone the definition of the infield fly rule. Real fans, the purists moan, are filling in their scorecards (K!), not jumping up and hollering “so good, so good, so good.” Even when the Red Sox are behind.
They complain that Sweet Caroline has driven them out of the park, that they no longer go to more than one or two games each year because they can’t possibly bear the two minutes of so when Neil Diamond’s playing and most of the fans are merrily singing along.
They point out that Neil Diamond once said that the song was inspired by a picture of Caroline Kennedy, taken when she was a pre-schooler living in the White House. This is certainly a plenty icky thought, given some of the lyrics – “touching me, touching you.” (Diamond later walked back this claim.) But it’s seems to me likely that, if Caroline Kennedy did inspire the song, it was her name that was the inspiration for the title, not her four-year old on a pony who inspired the sexually-tinged lyrics.
Anyway, I’m not a pink hat, and I like Sweet Caroline. So there.
But it wouldn’t be the end of the world if the Red Sox decided that it would only be played if the Red Sox were ahead. After all, it does seem pretty stupid to be top-of-the-lunging the words “good times never seemed so good” after the Sox have blown a five run lead and are now trailing by a pair. Yes, I get that those making a once in a lifetime pilgrimage to Fenway Park consider singing Sweet Caroline part of the overall experience – an experience they’ve paid through the nose to experience. But there is a legitimate argument to be more selective about when the song is played.
Someone suggested that, when the Sox are trailing, a better song to play might be Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds. This would be a good choice. If your team’s behind, what could be better than singing, “Don’t worry, ‘bout a thing. Cause every little thing’s, gonna be alright.”
I would hate to see them get rid of Sweet Caroline entirely. Restricting it to game where the Sox were ahead half way through the eighth inning would work for me.
Some of the commenters who posted on The Globe article also want the Red Sox to do away with The Wave, which still pops up occasionally. Unfortunately, The Wave doesn’t really require any involvement by the team. People just start doing it. And as far as I can tell, it pops up at the most inopportune times. The lunkheads sitting in front of me are standing up and waving just as the payoff pitch is being fired in. I wouldn’t want to those who instigate The Wave – talk about pink hats (and/or drunkards) tossed out. But I would like to see more people sit it out and stop blocking my view. When enough people stop participating in The Wave, it’ll die a natural death.
As for The Sweet Caroline Abolitionist Society, they, too, can lead by example. If enough fans stop singing it, I’m sure it will eventually die out. I won’t be one of them, but have at it.
As for me, I’ll be singing along. So good, so good, so good.
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