I simply did Boston Globe Sweet Caroline Red Sox in
yahoo search and this came right up; as for the explanation about “it was played because a Red Sox employee had a new
daughter named Caroline, THAT can be found at
redsoxconnection.com and I’ll repro it below. That story
also seems to dispute the one I’d heard about “in
tribute to the new baby” and gives the explanation
about the woman who picks the music played at Fenway
Boston Globe:
Another mystery of the Diamond, explained at last
By Stephanie Vosk, Globe Correspondent | May 29, 2005
The lyrics have nothing to do with baseball.
The composer has no connection to the Red Sox.
The song hit the charts more than 30 years ago.
So why does ‘’Sweet Caroline” pump from the speakers at Fenway Park in the middle of the eighth inning of every single Red Sox game?
Like all the Sox fans questioned at one of this month’s rare sunny home games, Paul Sundeen has no idea. And he attends 10 to 15 games a season.
‘’It’s just one of those things,” says Sundeen, 24, of West Roxbury. ‘’Everybody seems to sing it.”
‘’Maybe one of the player’s wives is Caroline,” offers Michael McCarthy, 25, a Back Bay resident.
‘’I think it was all Pedro Martinez’s fault,” says Marc Schwalb, 32, of Revere, shaking his arms to imitate the way the former Red Sox ace would dance for the crowd when the song was played.
Schwalb says he makes a point to sing along, despite the fact he finds ‘’Caroline” ‘’one of the worst songs ever written.”
Dennis Doherty, 28, of Hyde Park, also disses the song.
‘’ ‘Sweet Caroline’ has nothing to do with Boston,” Doherty says. ‘’I think they should end it; I don’t like it.”
As April McGann, 30, a FleetCenter employee from Randolph, explains the song has ‘’something to do with the Red Sox,” her friend jumps in with a more detailed answer.
‘’Boston’s supposed to be ‘Sweet Caroline,’ “ says Mairead Finn, 30, of Weymouth, with the voice of authority.
As the question spreads among nearby fans, Lauren Manforde, 21, of Naugatuck, Conn., jumps in, voicing frustration.
‘’Nobody knows,” she says, ‘’I’ve been trying to find out for years.”
Even Sherrie Levy, press agent for songwriter and singer Neil Diamond, has no clue.
‘’I’m not sure how it started, but we’re very pleased that it happened,” Levy says.
Diamond is on tour and not available to comment on the question, according to Levy.
Scheduled to perform at the FleetCenter Aug. 15, Diamond has been asked by the Red Sox to sing at their Aug. 14 home game against the Chicago White Sox. It is not yet known whether he will, Levy says.
Amy Tobey knows the answer to the ‘’Sweet Caroline” question.
Tobey began working for the Red Sox through her job at BCN Productions, a film and video communications company, having interned for the Boston Bruins.
Her assignment was to decide what music would be played at the park from 1998 to 2004.
She had noticed ‘’Sweet Caroline” was used at other sporting events, and she decided to send the sweetness over the Fenway speakers.
The song was picked up by fans, and the more it caught on, the more superstitious Tobey became about playing it.
Tobey would play the song somewhere between the seventh and ninth innings if the team was ahead, depending on whether she felt the team was going to win.
She didn’t go by any specific margin of runs, but rather who the opponent was, and her gut instincts.
‘’I actually considered it like a good luck charm,” Tobey says. ‘’Even if they were just one run [ahead], I might still do it. It was just a feel.”
In 2002, when new management took over at the park, they requested that Tobey play the song during the eighth inning of every game.
‘’They liked it and they just loved the crowd reaction with it and stuff,” she says.
Though Tobey says she was nervous the change would be bad luck for the team, its appeal to fans ultimately ruled.
And under the song’s spell, the Red Sox last season won their first World Series in 86 years.
It was even included in the recent film ‘’Fever Pitch,” starring Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore, that appropriates scenes from 2004’s winning season.
To Lauren Rochon, 23, of Quincy, ‘’Caroline,” is the ‘’epitome of Boston.”
‘’It’s just in every bar you go to, it’s one of those songs,” Rochon says. ‘’It’s Boston’s theme song.”
‘’It’s just a catchy tune, the words are easy . . . it gets the whole field in one rhythm,” says Jackie Davidson, 52, a Taunton resident, standing outside the park on Patriots Day.
‘’You don’t sing ‘Sweet Caroline’ . . . you didn’t go to a game.”
Another story attributes a different Caroline as the inspiration. Legend has it that former Red Sox public address announcer Ed Brickley requested the song to be played as a tribute to the appropriately named newborn daughter of Billy Fitzpatrick, who worked in the Fenway Park control room for 20 years.
In reality, the song got its start at Fenway Park thanks to Amy Tobey, who was the ballpark’s music director from 1998 to 2004. She was responsible for choosing the music to be played between innings and picked Sweet Caroline simply because she had heard it played at other sporting events.
At first, Tobey played the song at random games sometime between the seventh and ninth innings, and only if the Red Sox were ahead. Tobey considered the song a good luck charm and it soon became something the fans anticipated.
But it wasn’t until 2002, when John Henry’s group bought the Red Sox, that Sweet Caroline become an official Fenway tradition. That’s when the new ownership requested that Tobey play the song during the eighth inning of every game.
Today Megan Kaiser is the person who chooses the between innings songs at Fenway Park, with the 8th inning exception.
Kaiser did add a slightly new touch to the playback of Diamond’s tune, as she turns off the sound during the most popular parts of the song. Red Sox fans know the words by heart now so they don’t need much help with the lyrics, and the song has become an important part of the ballpark atmosphere.
“Singing Sweet Caroline. That’s cool,” said Red Sox third basemen Mike Lowell when asked about the vibe at Fenway Park.
How the song became so popular in the first place is another story, and no less than the songwriter himself is mystified at the success of Sweet Caroline. “No way to explain it. That’s one of the mysteries of songwriting,” says Diamond, who has written and recorded 38 Top 40 hits in his career.
As hard as it is to explain, Neil Diamond’s catchy song has found a place as part of Red Sox Nation lore, and by mixing Sweet Caroline with the Fenway faithful good times have never seemed so good.
http://www.redsoxconnection.com/sweetcaroline.html
What I would like to know is why they play the awful "Thank God I'm a Country Boy" by John Denver in the 7th inning at Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore... and they never play the traditional "Take Me Out to the Ballgame". I think that's the only ballpark I've ever been to that doesn't play "Take Me Out" during the 7th inning stretch. It's mystifying... and kind of sad.