Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle The Historic 2004 Season (2005) - Plot & Excerpts
One of the best short stories I've ever read was a non-fiction piece by Stephen King. Appearing buried in the back of his "Nightmares and Dreamscapes" collection, it was a piece he wrote following his son's Little League baseball team one Summer, when they went further in the competition than for many years. It was a huge change of pace from King - a tale in which nothing really bad happened and it was written in an understated and slightly introspective way, which showed a lot more emotion than I was used to with King's writing.When I heard he would be doing something similar with the Boston Red Sox in 2004, I was immediately looking forward to it, expecting much of the same. The expectation as to how good this could be got higher and higher as the Red Sox defied the odds, supposed curses and history to have a remarkable season.Supposedly, the Boston Red Sox are a cursed team, not having won baseball's World Series since 1918. However, every year the same dedicated fans, the Faithful, turn up for Spring training and to every game at Fenway Park, hoping beyond hope that this will be their year. For many of them, the 2004 season would be no different than usual. For Stephen King and Stewart O'Nan, it was business as usual except that they would be writing down their thoughts, instead of just having them.With these two men, we follow the highs and lows of the Red Sox 2004 season, from the pre-season thoughts to Spring training, all the way through until the end of the season. It's an interesting format for a book, written in parts by both authors in a kind of diary format, but also featuring E-Mails between the two of them, chatting about the games, their thoughts and just general Red Sox stuff.There is a distinct difference in style between the two men, which makes for an interesting read, as you get both parts of the story. Stephen King is much more of an armchair Red Sox fan. For sure, he goes to quite a few games, but he's more the kind of fan that doesn't feel he has to be on the spot to follow his team. His pieces are more introspective, more thoughtful and more about how it feels to be following the Red Sox, after you've had time to digest things. There are some parts that convey his emotions wonderfully, much like the "Head Down" story I was hoping the book would take after. Any armchair fan will know what King is going through as the season progresses.Stewart O'Nan, on the other hand, is a complete Red Sox nutter. He gets to as many games as he can, standing in the crowd catching balls in batting practice and in games and running up to any player he can get close to for autographs and to chat. His parts of the book are full of raw emotion, where every victory is cause for a celebration and every defeat is taken personally. Anyone who has ever followed a team as closely as this will understand completely. The whole year is one huge roller coaster and O'Nan is the one in charge of the ride. He's the one who really gives you the feeling of what it means to be one of the Faithful and makes you understand why people who have been waiting more than eighty years for their team to win the World Series can still believe.For me, however, the really fun part of the book was the E-Mails between them. I don't know how much editing has gone into them before they were published, but as a long term fan, it's great to read something that Stephen King was not writing for publication. It feels as if, possibly for the first time, I am getting to see the real Stephen King. Although the sections of the book he writes are not all that similar to his normal work, it does feel considered, whereas his E-Mails don't. He feels a lot looser and a lot funnier than I ever really expected him to be, and I couldn't resist laughing when a man of his age (he turned 57 during the season) starts an E-Mail with "Duuuuuude!" Sporting fanaticism can make children out of all of us, and millionaire novelists are not immune to this by any stretch of the imagination.How much you are going to enjoy this book will vary greatly depending on your interest in both the author and the subject matter. Personally speaking, I may be in the ideal demographic for this book, as I'm a huge Stephen King fan and, whilst I may not be a big baseball fan, I understand the game a little. This last means that when they talk about balls and strikes and Ks and RBIs, I know what they mean, even though while I know what ERA stands for, I'm not entirely sure what it means. For those who fall into the same category as I, I suspect you'll thoroughly enjoy the book for much the same reasons I did, in that it gives you a new look at Stephen King - as a man, rather than as a horror novelist - and the subject matter won't bore you.For those who are made keen baseball fans and who could explain exactly what an ERA is, you may find this book is a little simplistic, although it is still well written and quite readable. If you have no interest in baseball or sports in general, for this isn't a book just about baseball, but about being a mad keen fan, this may be a little heavy going, no matter how big a fan of either author you are. If you're a fan of sports and enjoyed Nick Hornby's "Fever Pitch", you may identify with parts of the book, particularly King's sections on how hard it is to root for a team that is constantly letting you down. If you're neither a fan of sports or baseball, you'll not really understand any of this and this is a book best left alone.Just one word of warning for the baseball fan, though. This isn't a book about baseball in general; it is heavily focussed on the Boston Red Sox. Many fans of other sides will be able to enjoy the feelings, but perhaps not identify as much with the emotions your average Red Sox fan seems to go through every season. Fans of the Yankees has best avoid this book, because as the Red Sox closest rivals, they do take a bit of a hammering. Baltimore Orioles fans will end up feeling a little hard done by as well, with their team being called "the loathsome El Birdos" more or less throughout.For me, as a part-time Yankees and baseball fan and a full-time King and Liverpool FC fan and someone with a little baseball knowledge, this was a wonderful book. I loved seeing King as a human being, possibly for the first time. I loved hearing the stories and sharing in the emotion of fellow sports fans, especially myself being a fan of a team that has given me many highs and lows over the last twenty years. And I enjoyed hearing and reading a little about baseball, a game which I feel a strange affinity for, even though I don't always know why.If your interests work along the same lines as my own, I thoroughly recommend this book and will seem like great value for money, as it did for me, as this is not the kind of book you will read just the once, but go back and dip in and out of occasionally. This is one of those rare things, a well written chronicle of a sporting season. It was not put together after the fact, with fading memories and a video tape of the games, trying to feel forgotten emotions and transfer them to the page and written by someone who thinks they can write because they are fans. This is a book that was written as it went, with all the emotions spilled straight from the heart onto the page and written by two men who are as professional in their writing as they are in their fanaticism for the Red Sox.This may not be the book written on my favourite sport and it may not be the sports book I have most readily identified with. But it's certainly one of the books I have most enjoyed, in any genre, and unless you're a Yankees fan, quite possibly one of the best sports books you're ever likely to read. It comes highly recommended by me, especially to people like me, but only with care given that it could cause distress to some and boredom to others.This review may also appear, in whole or in part, under my name at any or all of www.ciao.co.uk, www.thebookbag.co.uk, www.goodreads.com, www.amazon.co.uk and www.dooyoo.co.uk
It was recommended to me by someone I trust to skip this book. I told him I don't care that much about baseball, and I care even less about the Red Sox, so the only reason I would read it is because of my undying adoration of both Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King. I read a couple reviews by people here, all of whom seem to agree that if you don't care about the Sox or baseball it would be silly to read this book.I'm not going to say I agree or disagree with them. I will say that I actually sorta kinda enjoyed this. I didn't expect to, but it happened. It totally snuck up on me.O'Nan and King are both incredible fans of the Red Sox, and this is their documentation of the 2004 season in which they made it to (and ultimately won) the World Series for the first time in a really long time. These two fans exchanged e-mails throughout the season, kept diaries, went to games together, talked some smack, and never gave up hope.I don't think it was as badly written as some of the reviews complain. I think what those people focus on is the subject itself. Considering I don't follow baseball and don't give a hoot about RBIs and other stats, I was able to just focus on what I think is the bigger issue at hand: The undying love and affection two writers have for one baseball team. I can appreciate when anyone is so faithful to whatever; in my case I have an undying love and affection for books. Faithful was dedicated to the authors' "baseball widows", Trudy and Tabitha, which made me think if I ever wrote a book about books I would have to dedicate it to my family as well - the ones who can (and have) spent hours with me in bookstores (more than one in a day), or specifically my oldest brother who went with me to Pearl S. Buck's house that one time only to find out I was supposed to have worked that day but (WHOOPS!) I didn't realize and I got in trouble later.Baseball isn't my obsession of choice, but I can respect it. Well, now I can. My ex was an avid Mets fan and I hated hearing about it, but that's a different story. I grew up with some baseball in my history. Our parents took us to some games, strangely, and all three of us played T-ball. (Some of us played worse than others. It took me a while to understand the concept was to hit the ball and not the T.) Some time ago when my dad's job moved to another state, he had to go ahead to try to find a place to live and my mom had to stay behind to try to sell our house. My brothers and I were adults at that point and pretty much lived on our own, but would all try to get together on the weekends when Dad would come back. I thought it'd be cool to ride down to Memphis with him one weekend and then ride back to Missouri with him the following weekend. During the week in Memphis I did my own thing while Dad worked, but one evening he brought home tickets to a AAA game. We laughed about it because it really wasn't us, that's not our schtick. But we went anyway. I can't tell you now who played or who won or even what the score was. But I can tell you that it was a fun time, that it was great to be able to spend that one-on-one time with my dad. It's not something we had really done before and it's not something we'll likely do again. So I appreciated it.And that seems to be what baseball is for me. It's something that's just sort of there, I can take it or leave it, but the memories I have of it are pretty fun. I like ballparks, oddly. The smell and the sounds mostly. But I don't follow the teams, and maybe that's because we moved so much that it was hard to give our loyalty to any specific team.Or maybe (most likely) it's because overall we're a pretty nerdy family, and even though we all tried sports at one time or another, it just wasn't for us.Yes, my eyes started to glaze over a time or two during reading this book - there are lots of names and stats that I don't care about. But the other part of the book is the connection between O'Nan and King, the way their friendship developed over this season, the anecdotes about their families and their own writing... those are things I held on for, gimme more gimme more.So, okay, as a sports book I can't say whether or not it's any good. I have a feeling they weren't able to capture the moment the Red Sox won the World Series, and in fact that bit seemed a bit breezy. But as a work of non-fiction about being faithful to a sports team and what it means to be faithful? That was pretty good.And, really. I truly adore O'Nan and King. I'm glad they're friends. I think they're good for each other. And, hell, if they'd have me, I would totally go to a Red Sox game with them.
What do You think about Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle The Historic 2004 Season (2005)?
Written in diary style, Faithful is Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King's view of the 2004 Boston Red Sox season. O'Nan contributes the most to the book, especially at the beginning of the season, while Stephen King writes more about the middle and second half of the season. Their styles are quite different - O'Nan, who became a Red Sox fan as an adult, is more analytical about the game, yet at time is almost childlike in his attempts to catch balls at batting practice or get players autographs. King, a lifelong Red Sox fan, has experienced all the joy and heartbreak of being a member of Red Sox nation and it comes through in his writing. Some of his writing is memorable, especially the part where he throws out the first pitch, which had me laughing, and when he takes his mother-in-law to a playoff game, which brought tears to my eyes. As both a Red Sox and Stephen King fan, I really enjoyed reading this book. It was fun reliving certain games (including a few I'd like to forget about!). O'Nan and King not only talk about the games, but their own lives, in such a way that I felt like I was sitting next to them at Fenway Park, rather than reading a book! Red Sox fans will enjoy this book. After all, it has the perfect ending!
—Drebbles
Sean LaPrise11/11/10Period: 1Mr. AmbroseQuarter One Book Review: FaithfultIn the year of 2004, history was made marking the greatest comeback in all of Baseball by none other than the Boston Red Sox. Two die-hard fans, who decided to chronicle the 2004 season of the Boston Red Sox were novelist, Stewart O’Nan and author of contemporary horror, Stephen King. These authors however would not know what history would eventually be made by their home team, and their recap of this great year would spawn, Faithful. O’Nan and King take the readers through their experiences, emotions, and memories within the writing of this book. In a few words, it is an excellent read, but has only a few negative things. This review for Faithful is based off of the good things about it, the bad things, and how it reaches out to certain and specific readers. tThere are many reasons why a reader or readers would enjoy or like this book. It lets the readers relive the history that was made in the 2004 American League championship series, and the entire season with every single game and the scores. Both also describe the turning points of the Red Sox season, including their terrible month of June to the turnaround in July/August. The readers get to know what the authors are like during the year as well, including their expressed mixed emotions throughout the year. One example in particular was the American League Championship Series where all hope was lost after falling 0-3, and coming back and winning 4-3 in the series. Their emotions changed from nervous and depressed feelings to exciting and confident feelings. Readers can also use the authors as a reference to see what a die-hard fan is like, by going to many games and watching every game to the last second. One quote from Stephen King was, “Tonight, barring a stroke or a heart attack, I expect to be in until the end, be it bitter or sweet. And the same could be said for the season as a whole. I'm going to do pretty much what I did last year, in other words (only this year I expect to get paid for doing it). Which is pretty much addiction in a nutshell: doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result,"(King, 33). King said this on opening night of the season, and it shows that he is a die-hard fan, saying that he will be in it to the end bitter or sweet. Both authors also include short segments every few pages that are dialogues between each other. This is a good way for the readers to identify the feelings between the authors at certain points during the year, and witness debates between the authors as well. If some readers do judge the book by its cover, they would presume that the book is just about the team and their games, well, it’s not. The authors include many of their experiences within the season that adds more to the story. O’Nan writes about going to Fort Myers with his family for spring training, and King includes his experience of throwing the first pitch at Fenway Park. As one can see, there are many reasons why this book is a good read, but it does have its negatives as well. tNothing can be perfect, but this book is very close to being perfect. In my opinion, the book was very clear throughout the four-hundred and three pages and did not have many undesirable elements and things, but it did have a couple. The major dislike of the book in my opinion is the references to every single game of the season and stats. This made the book feel very dull and boring, having to read about every single game and statistic. I also did not like that Stephen King was not included as much compared to Stewart O’Nan. The only times King was included in the book was within the dialogues between him and O’Nan and the bold sentences. I believe that O’Nan should deserve most of the credit for the book. Other than those two dislikes, the book was great to read. tIn my opinion the greatest thing that Stewart O’Nan and Stephen King did to write this book was making it readable for all types of readers. Sports fans and enthusiast would most likely enjoy this book for reviewing or reliving the unbelievable acts of 2004, and because they enjoy sports. Readers who enjoy comedy and humor may like this read because of the language that is invoked within the book, jokes and cuss words in particular. Readers who enjoy Drama and suspense may enjoy this book as well because of how dramatic the Red Sox regular season and postseason was. Additionally, people who would like to learn about what happened in 2004 would definitely enjoy reading this because they can read about how the Red Sox came back from a 0-3 deficit, and from a fans view at the same time. This is a book that has so many different elements and themes that makes it creative and enjoyable for all.tThese are the elements that the book review for Faithful, is based off of. As stated before, even though this book has a few negative things that do not make it perfect, it is still a great read. It is a creative and powerful story about the entire 2004 Boston Red Sox season, starting from spring training and ending in the World Series. It is a book that is readable and enjoyable for all types of readers. It is also a key to reliving the 86 year drought of a World Series title, come to an end. If I were to recommend this book, I would recommend it to any type of reader because it is something everyone will enjoy. I believe that this is one of the greatest books I have ever read and is marked as a remembrance of what happened in the 2004 baseball season forever.
—Sean Laprise
On the surface, this is a book for Red Sox fans. I am not a Red Sox fan. I grew up a Phillies fan, and am the son of a Cubs fan, so I don't need to be preached to about baseball futility. However, the little details of what it means to be a baseball fan are what makes this book so readable. So underneath all the Red Sox rooting, there is a very nice book about being a fan, of a team and the game. If you don't have a working knowledge of baseball, let this book slide. The authors don't try to explain the game, rather they explain what the game means to them. Parent and child moments at the ballpark, desperately tuning AM radio stations to catch a score, and perhaps even turning your cap inside out when it's really, really, needed. Those little details help make this book a great addition to any baseball lover's library. And, if you are a Sox fan, go ahead and revel in a perfect season captured in print.
—Mark
