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

[Wayne Carter]

	That is funny... where I live just outside Orlando it is the 
norm in the local music clubs, instead of singing the "Bah bah bah" 
part, to shout "This song sucks!"....
	I don't think anybody actually feels that way, I think they 
just like shouting the phrase at Disney world...

	Wayne Carter

>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!