Synopses & Reviews
A fan's notes for the ages, Faithful grew from an email exchange last summer. Filled with the heady mix of exhilaration and frustration familiar to all Boston Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan fired off a note to fellow Sox fan, Stephen King, who responded with his thoughts on Pedro, Nomar, Manny, Mueller, and Theo. From the supposed Curse of the Bambino to f###in' Bucky Dent to the recent off-season battle for Alex Rodriguez, Sox fans have seen it all since 1918...except for that elusive World Championship. Baseball history has transformed these fans into a "nation" not to mention the most dedicated, knowledgeable fanbase on the planet. Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, proud members of Red Sox Nation, will chronicle the 2004 baseball season from spring training to the last game of the season the important plays, the controversial managerial decisions, the significant front office moves, and the spectacular finish. Attending games together, keeping a running diary of observations and arguments, and occasionally evoking great or tragic events in Red Sox history. King and O'Nan will cheer on their beloved team with the eternal hope that this just might be the year. If you don't have season ticket box seats right behind the firstbase dugout, you can't beat Faithful.
Review
"King and O'Nan are the kind of fans who make for great baseball companions: knowledgeable, opinionated, funny and irreverent." Bob Minzesheimer, USA Today
Review
"[A]n entertaining chronicle of the just-completed 2004 Boston Red Sox baseball season. In fact, this collaborative memoir of diary entries and e-mails is nothing less than a passionate love letter to...the new champions of Major League Baseball." Boston Globe
Review
"[A]n excitable, book-length high-five for the winning team....[T]he authors rise to the occasion. They present appealingly hotheaded accounts of each game, complete with unedited trivia and you-are-there minutiae." Janet Maslin, The New York Times
Review
"If you are, like the authors, a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan, then by all means go out and buy it....Most of the time, though, Faithful is pretty much awful..." San Antonio Express-News
Review
"Play-by-play of games from the past just isn't that interesting..." Oregonian
Review
"As a collectible souvenir, a completist's highlight reel, joyous fans could hardly ask for more. As a book, however, not as a keepsake but rather as four hundred pages of self-standing reading material, it's not exactly a page-turner....And yet here's the rub: the authors stumbled on a rare season, and somewhere down the line just about anyone who followed this year's Red Sox will be thankful that two passionate fans kept notes." Dave Weich, Powells.com (read the entire Powells.com review)
Synopsis
Two fiercely avid Red Sox fans document one of the most eagerly anticipated baseball seasons of all time.
Synopsis
"
Faithful isn't just about the Red Sox. It's also about family, friendship, and what it truly means to be a baseball fan and to be--well, faithful, come hell or high water" (
The Boston Globe).
"Of all the books that will examine the Boston Red Sox's stunning come-from-behind 2004 ALCS win over the Yankees and subsequent World Series victory, none will have this book's warmth, personality, or depth" (Publishers Weekly).
Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan's notes for the ages.
Synopsis
Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan's notes for the ages.andlt;BRandgt;andlt;BRandgt;Early in 2004, two writers and Red Sox fans, Stewart O'Nan and Stephen King, decided to chronicle the upcoming season, one of the most hotly anticipated in baseball history. They would sit together at Fenway. They would exchange emails. They would write about the games. And, as it happened, they would witness the greatest comeback ever in sports, and the first Red Sox championship in eighty-six years. What began as a Sox-filled summer like any other is now a fan's notes for the ages.
Synopsis
Did you know there is a secret to winning ballgames? It's not the players, managers, money, or luck. It's juju, and no one knows it better than Hart Seely, who may be the world's biggest Yankees fan and juju practitioner. In this uproarious, unforgettable fan confessional, Hart Seely explores how his career and life are inextricably bound to the fate of his beloved franchise, showing that an extreme love can be a powerful passion in the best way.
About the Author
Stewart O'Nan's novels include
Snow Angels,
The Speed Queen,
A Prayer for the Dying, and
The Night Country.
Granta has named him one of the Twenty Best Young American Novelists.
Stephen King is the author of more than forty novels and two hundred short stories. In 2003 he received the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters.
Both authors live in Red Sox Nation.
Table of Contents
Contents Introduction By Stewart O'Nan
Spring Training: Welcome to Next Year
April/May: Who Are These Guys?
June: The June Swoon
July: Turn the Page
August: The Hottest August on Record
September/October: Hangin' Tough
The ALDS: Somebody Got-ta Pay P> The ALCS: Beyond Thunderdome
The World Series: The Possible Dream
It's Weird But True: The Gloom Is Gone In Mudville By Stephen King
Love Train By Stewart O'Nan
Acknowledgments
Boston Red Sox 2004 Stats
Index