Now that the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series in a most unbelievable fashion, there will be - and already are - many books chronicling their playoff run. We'll read about David Ortiz's clutch hitting, Curt Schilling's bloody sock, and A-Rod's slap. We'll recap the sweep of the Angels, the incredible comeback against the hated Yankees, and the final sweep of the mighty Cardinals.
But how many of these books will do more than gloss over spring training, the red hot start, and the lackluster month of June? Granted, the playoffs were the most exciting part of the season, but if you're looking for a book that brings back memories of every game, even those that made the World Series seem worlds away, check out Faithful: Two Diehard Boston Red Sox Fans Chronicle The 2004 Season. Here, Stewart O'Nan and Steven King present the '04 season as a whole: it's ups, downs, and in-betweens all in one package.
After the unhappy ending of the otherwise thrilling 2003 season, O'Nan and King, both huge Sox fans, realized that these days, a Red Sox season can be a roller coaster of a story and therefore decided to chronicle 2004 from start to finish. Rather than write in narrative form, they chose to use a diary format, writing as much as they wanted on every single game. In the beginning, O'Nan does most of the writing with King chiming in occasionally, but they seem to reverse that in the book's second half. Both the authors know their stuff. Though they are not baseball experts, they know about as much as any fan who watches every single game of a season, so they have me beat there.
Of course, the journal format can become tedious, especially during the team's summer slumps. Its pros, however, kept me reading diligently. First, it reminds us that every game is important, espeically when keeping track of closeness of AL east and wild card races, and it reminds us of many moments we may have forgotten. Second, since they write on a personal level, they capture a good deal of fandom, mainly when they write about experiences at the ballpark. The e-mail exchanges in the book display fans' usual enthusiasm and optimism alongside the frustration and "I can manage this team better" attitudes.
Also, the journal format allows for only immediate reactions from the authors. The story's end can cause many fans to forget about the season's low points, but without the aid of retrospect, King and O'Nan give us their exact thoughts on the positives and the negatives. I, like the authors, was a bit distraught over the trade of Nomar Garciaparra, who was seemingly destined to one day have his number 5 retired at Fenway. O'Nan and King's anger over this reminded me of how I felt before everything worked out for the best.
Surprisingly King's writing was my least favorite aspect of the book. When he stuck to discussing the games, he was fine. But, like he tends to do in his novels, he fell back on repetition, taking it to annoying heights. Constantly slipping in the same quotations, nicknames, and sub par jokes was bad enough, but his love affair with the asterisk was what really got me. Just about every one of his entries contained a footnote. These footnotes, however, didn't lead to stats but to his own asides or afterthoughts, many of which could have been worked into the paragraphs. I found this laziness very surprising from a best selling novelist.
If you can get past that, though, you're in for a decent read. I'm sure many better books already have been and will be written about this magical season, but Faithful is good for something different. Nothing is glossed over. They take you through an entire season, showing that even when a team doesn't look like championship material, anything is possible.
More Red Sox reviews:
Videos
MLB World Series DVD
Fever Pitch
Books
The Teammates: A Portrait of a Friendship
Tales From the Red Sox Dugout
Music
Tessie
Too Long on the Mound
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