WCRN adds Red Sox, and the "Sweet Caroline" story

[Bob Nelson]

WCRN 830 Worcester's big announcement is...they are taking over for WTAG as
Red Sox affiliate next year (with "50,000 watts of NIGHTTIME power!).
That should
help to the west since WRKO goes directional at night.

http://www.wcrnradio.com

Thanks--and just clicked on their site...So WTAG loses rights after
all these years.

It was mentioned that hearing "Sweet Caroline" as part of the WCRN
promos was a good clue. By the way I thought I read in one paper that
the tradition of the Sox playing that song during the middle of the
8th inning goes back to the fact that a Sox employee's wife gave birth
to a girl named Caroline; the song was played in her honor, and it
caught on...even appearing in the movie "Fever Pitch" as the crowd
chants So Good! So
Good! Along with it.

Yet a quick websearch drags up an article in the paper whose parent
company owns 17 per cent of the team, and el Globo says that the
Fenway park "DJ" started to play it and it just caught on with the
crowd. (It was on a list of older rock songs that other stadia played
as well.) I read somewhere online that the Mets also picked
up the tradition of playing the tune, and I remember hearing it at a
minor league park in Ohio last year. Somewhere out there is that
little article I read (maybe as part of a "baseball notes" article)
saying that the birth of a daughter to a Red Sox employee is the real
reason why...

Ah! And here it is (adding "daughter" to the yahoo search was the
key). And again it comes from the Globe:
the Red Sox had an employee named Billy Fitzpatrick who worked with
them from 1984-2003, and in Dec. 1998 Billy's daughter Caroline was
born. " At a Red Sox game the following summer, with Billy nearby in
the control room, former public address announcer Ed Brickley
requested that ''Sweet Caroline" be played." Fenway
Park "DJ" Amy Tobey did, and noticed the Sox fans seemed to enjoy it.
For a time, it was only played when the Sox were leading or if it was
a close game (kind of like the Angels' "Rally Monkey" bit or the Sox'
own Rally Karaoke guy, Kevin Millar) but reaction to it was "so
strong" that it became a regular fixture
just before the Sox came up in the bottom of the 8th.

And now you know...the rest of the Story!