I'm embarrassed to say that my favorite team, the Mets, is ripping off your favorite team, the Red Sox, by conducting a sing-along to Sweet Caroline during the middle of the eighth inning at all home games at Shea Stadium.Mets fans discuss this here.
In my view, this is sad, because the sing-along is clearly a Fenway special, so to speak. I'm trying to get my readers to rally and lobby the team to stop ripping off Red Sox Nation.
I hate all music at the park -- I'm there to watch a baseball game -- but if a team is going to force some silly gimmick on its fans, it should be original. The Red Sox have been playing the song at Fenway for almost 10 years; they don't own the rights, but it's become a trademark of sorts. ... I like one commenter's idea of using a Ramones song. ("Beat on the brat with a baseball bat ...")
(Of course, anything the Mets come up with will not be as bad as the Yankees playing YMCA while its groundscrew rakes the infield every night. That crap blows any myth about pinstripe class and dignity right out of the water. And the fact that the fans cheer it as though it's a walk-off World Series winning grand slam is another sad story.)
Yeah, they did it last year there. In the comments on that site you link, someone mentions how singing along to it an inning away from clinching the 2006 championship or whatever was the greatest moment of their life or something. Pukebarf. The the next person then rips the Red Sox, immediately giving me the feeling that that person rooted for the Yanks in the late nineties, the Mets in 86, the Yanks in the late 70s, the Mets in 69, etc, etc.
ReplyDeleteI was just as shocked last summer to hear Sweet Caroline at a Mets minor league game I went to. (http://letsgosox.blogspot.com/2006/08/another-place-another-train.html, scroll way down if you care to read my thrilling description of it) That seemed sacrelige enough. The fact that another major league park does it is an abomination. But this is the team whose own TV network calls itself "the home of New York Sports," instead of something more like the "We're the Mets and the Yankees effin Suck" Network.
mlb.com's showing Dice for Tuesday at Rogers Centre.
ReplyDeleteThe Twins also play "Sweet Caroline" at their spring training facility in Florida.
ReplyDeletemlb.com's showing Dice for Tuesday at Rogers Centre
ReplyDeleteIt's also on the front page of the Toronto Star's sports section today.
Woo-fuckin'-hoo! -- as long as they don't skip S.L.
Right. Either way, I see him against the Yanks, since I'll be at Saturday and Sunday's game. Still, fingers crossed. Nothing's a sure thing.
ReplyDeleteIf they do skip the lis, he's bound to face Toronto in Canada this season at some point. You're good.
But this is the team whose own TV network calls itself "the home of New York Sports," instead of something more like the "We're the Mets and the Yankees effin Suck" Network.
ReplyDeleteOr, more appropriately for New York, "We're the other baseball team, the one you watch when there's nothing else on!" For a while their ad campaign was "We Are New York Sports". I used to have fun with that on the subway.
I'm almost certain that the Washington Nationals do it as well.
ReplyDeleteTheir use of the song doesn't bug me...but the fact that they're so unoriginal that they have to play it at the EXACT time it is played in Fenway is slightly annoying.
it is my opinion that the manner in which you are complaining about such a trival event reflects negatively not just on yourself as a red sox fan, but on the city of Boston as a whole.
ReplyDeletethank you for taking the time to listen to my comment, i hope that found it respectful and intelligent.
Yet it was a Mets fan that emailed me and told me about it. ... I really don't care much about this at all.
ReplyDeleteIf the Red Sox started singing a song that went "Meet the Sox, meet the Sox, step right up and meet the Sox", etc., would some Mets fans be annoyed?
Probably a few. But I wouldn't say their opinion reflected poorly on the great city of New York.
respectful and intelligent
It was respectful. And I should correct what I told you: you don't have to be intelligent.
You can keep it.
ReplyDeleteMost Mets fans hate that it is played.