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Sweet!
:::dashes off to bookstore:::
Tell the guy to go read the archived Sports pages if wants 'real reporting'. For others like us, we are extremely satisfied with the 'real telling' straight from the heart.
The Toronto Star--features interview with King & O'Nan
No shit!
By Conan O'Brien | December 19, 2004
When your leadoff hitter is a 600,000-year-old caveman, an 86-year-long curse seems pretty insignificant.
First-year manager Terry Francona implemented a new series of complicated signs, which were as indecipherable by the opposition as a victory speech by Mayor Menino.
Just before the July 31 trade deadline, Ben Affleck unloaded the slumping Jennifer Lopez for the scrappy Jennifer Garner and a stripper to be named later.
In the process of suturing Curt Schilling's injured ankle, Dr. Bill Morgan - in a serious breach of medical ethics - installed the torsion bar from a Dodge Caravan.
The Red Sox were able to generate more enthusiasm recently by building seats on the Green Monster, on the right-field roof, and along the side of David Ortiz's meaty thighs.
In an incredible first strike, the Red Sox nicknamed themselves "The Idiots" before the New York Post could. The Post's subsequent headline, "Yes, You Are!" took the steam out of the whole town.
Manny Ramirez's disheveled appearance rattled opposing hitters, who often called timeout because they thought a homeless man had wandered onto left field.
Jason Giambi's mysterious illness was later traced to one of the many debilitating diseases thriving on Trot Nixon's cap.
In a wrongheaded attempt to counter the Red Sox' 281/4-inch "Mahow Mahow" De La Rosa, George Steinbrenner purchased 71-inch former UN secretary "Boutros Boutros"-Ghali. The results are disastrous.
Red Sox fans finally embraced Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" as their eighthinning anthem, after years of disappointment with Diamond's "You Don't Bring Me Flowers."
The Cardinals were intimidated by Bronson Arroyo's cornrows, especially when crop circles mysteriously appeared in the fifth inning of Game 1.
Schilling bought Drew Bledsoe's $12 million mansion for $6.6 million, starting his goodluck streak. Bledsoe, in typical fashion, held onto something too long and got creamed.
After drawing a base on balls off Mariano Rivera in the ninth inning of ALCS Game 4, Kevin Millar is arrested by a Boston cop for failing to walk a straight line to first. His replacement, Dave Roberts, steals second and scores the game-tying run.
The fact that Theo Epstein's grandfather co-wrote Casablanca led all Red Sox fans to believe the season would have a classic and unpredictable ending. By the way, this means that during the off-season, Steinbrenner will be shot by the French police.
Pedro Martinez's statement that "the Yankees are my Daddy" initially delighted Yankee fans but ultimately distracted and confused them with warm, paternal feelings.
A-Rod's desperate swipe at Arroyo's glove showed the Yankees to be vulnerable. Bostonians hadn't seen a slap like that since Wade Boggs hit on a waitress at Hooters.
When the Yankees lost Don Zimmer in the off-season, they lost the man who was instrumental to their World Series victories in 2000, 1999, and 1978.
A batter may not be intimidated by Pedro or Schilling, but a grinning Stephen King will haunt your dreams forever.
The Red Sox players loved and respected Terry Francona, not for his management ability but because he could stuff a wad of tobacco the size of Ted Kennedy's head in his mouth.
Any town that can con $15 billion out of the federal government just to have a slightly faster way to get to the airport can surely finagle a World Series.
Conan O'Brien, the host of NBC's Late Night With Conan O'Brien, grew up in Brookline. He thanks Brian Kiley, Luke O'Brien, and Jim Pitt for helping him with this list.
Could horrormeister Stephen King and novelist Stewart O'Nan have known, when they took on this venture, how important this past season might be? Sure, the Sox had a great team "on paper," as the saying goes; they looked like an ample match for the smug New York Yankees, especially with the acquisition of pitching ace Curt Schilling. But who could blame Red Sox rooters, with their long history of disappointment, for not brimming with confidence. And when the season was over, there were the Yankees, once again, Division title winners.
But wait. With King involved, there has to be something supernatural going on. And, unbelievable and improbable as it seemed, the Sox, for once, did not falter, enjoying a "back from the grave," three-games-to-none come-from-behind playoff series victory --- never before accomplished in the annals of the game. But professional sports is an industry that asks the eternal question, "What have you done for us lately?" After the series, sports pundits argued if this would suffice, if the "moral victory" of just beating the hated Yankees would make a World Series title anti-climactic. The majority ruled that, no, only a full running of the board could purge "the curse of the Bambino," which had kept the Red Sox title-less since 1918. Babe Ruth, a star pitcher as well as watershed slugger for the Bostons, was sold to the Yankees after the 1919 season, turning their fortunes around and making them the poster team for sports success, while generations of Red Sox fans had gone to their graves, unfulfilled.
O'Nan does the lion's share of the work, writing on an almost-daily basis about the rise and fall of the team throughout the season, reporting on "the thousands natural shocks that flesh is heir to," to borrow from another notable writer. King drops his own opinions here and there. The style has been compared with that of a broadcast team, with O'Nan doing the play-by-play, and King the color commentary. It works quite well. On occasion, they share a dialogue with their readers. (Some readers might have difficulty differentiating between the two writers: King's comments appear in bold type, but after a few pages, the distinction is hard to tell.)
What could have been a celebrity stunt --- compared Faithful to Larry King's saccharine Why I Love Baseball --- turns into a thoughtful and enjoyable presentation (although, at times, they do carry on like a couple of sports radio nerds). One can easily believe King, who claims loyalty to the Sox since 1967, when he compares his love for the game to an addiction: "This book legitimizes my obsession and allows me to indulge in it to an even greater degree."
"I am a baseball junkie, pure and simple," avers the man who wrote The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon, an ode to the former Boston reliever.
During spring training, O'Nan --- author of A Prayer for the Dying, Snow Angels and The Speed Queen, among others --- wrote, "...it's too early to wax really lyrical... (God knows there's too much labored lyricism in baseball writing these days...)." Apparently by May, the time for waxing was ripe, as he offered: "Baseball is a lazy game, meant to be played on a long, lazy summer afternoon and into the purple twilight" as he bemoaned the way money has changed the game, making it more a vehicle for television than a pleasure for the fans. How else to explain starting times for post-season games that all but guarantee the contests won't be over before the next day?
It would be hard to find a team whose fans are more manic than the Red Sox. Their followers are used to accepting the best while expecting the worst. After Boston's four game sweep of the Cardinals, sportswriters wondered what the Red Sox rooters would do now that they've lost the empathy that comes with having your heart broken over and over.
Towards the end of Faithful, King writes:
"'Can you believe it?' Joe Castiglione [the long-time Red Sox broadcaster] exults, and eighty-six years of disappointment falls away in the length of time it takes the first-base ump to hoist up his thumb in the out sign.
"This is not a dream.
"We are living real life."
For two men who make their living writing fiction, this heartfelt paean to the team and, indeed, to the entire "Red Sox nation" will let readers keep the warm feeling throughout the winter and for years to come.