Ba, ba, ba: "Sweet Caroline" and the Sox

A couple days ago marked the 48th anniversary of Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline," released as a single in 1969. I happened to be thinking about the song this morning as I awoke, wondering why there is a connection between the song and the Boston Red Sox. I theorized that perhaps Diamond was from Boston, but that's not true: ironically, he was born in Brooklyn. My other best guess was that it started as someone's walk-up music, but to the best of my knowledge after researching, it was not.

It turns out I was wrong about a number of points, including when it is played. For whatever reason, I seemed to remember that it was the soundtrack of the seventh inning stretch, but again, this is not so: it is played during the eighth inning of all Red Sox home games.

It also turns out that I'm not the only one with misconceptions about the song's use. Indeed, there is an apocryphal tale about former public address announcer Ed Brickley arranging for the song to be played on the occasion of the birth of a Fenway Park employee's daughter -- she was named, of course, Caroline ("Good Times...).

The writer for a Winston-Salem Journal column suggested the connection between Neil's last name and the shape of a baseball infield, which is a sharp observation that I didn't consider but, alas, also unrelated ("Ask SAM...").

Both the Journal and the Boston's Pastime articles point to Amy Tobey, the Red Sox employee who heard "Sweet Caroline" used at other sporting events and decided to roll it out during the later innings of games at Fenway starting around the turn of the millennium -- initially, when they were winning and, eventually, as a sort of fan-favorite good luck charm. The Boston's Pastime website adds the interesting note that Megan Kaiser, another Red Sox employee, more recently added the variation that the music be dropped during the parts that fans sing along to, such as the "so good, so good, so good" echo.

All in all, it seems the connection between "Sweet Caroline" and the Red Sox serves as a reminder that baseball fans enjoy their traditions and enjoy winning. Regardless of the score, I imagine that being at Fenway and singing along to this Neil Diamond classic as the home half of the eighth inning approaches conjures a sense that victory is possible, or at least the memory of victories of the past during which this same song was sung.

(I recommend the aforementioned articles -- linked below -- for anyone interested in concise takes on the topic, and for anyone looking for more, I came across an NPR piece from a 2005 episode of Morning Edition, also linked below.)


SOURCES:
- "Ask SAM: The origin of 'Sweet Caroline' at Red Sox Games." Winston-Salem Journal. Posted: April 20, 2013. Available: http://www.journalnow.com/news/ask_sam/ask-sam-the-origin-of-sweet-caroline-at-red-sox/article_9c8b8c56-a93f-11e2-9b23-0019bb30f31a.html.
- "Good Times Never Seemed So Good For Red Sox Fans." Boston's Pastime. Updated: February 24, 2008. Available: http://www.bostonspastime.com/sweetcaroline.html.
- Orlean, Susan. "The Mystery of 'Sweet Caroline' and the Sox." Morning Edition. NPR.com. Posted: September 30, 2005. Available: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4930465.
- "Neil Diamond" & "Sweet Caroline." Wikipedia. Available: www.wikipedia.org.