Stephen King - Faithful

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Faithful: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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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.
Amazon.com Review
Fans watching the 2004 baseball playoffs were often treated to shots of Stephen King sitting in the stands, notebook in hand. Given the bizarre events on the field, from the Red Sox’s unprecedented comeback against their most hated rivals to their ace pitcher’s bleeding, stitched-together ankle--not to mention the Sox’s first championship in 86 years--you could be forgiven for thinking King was writing the script as he went along, passing new plot twists down to the dugouts between innings.
What he was writing, though, along with his friend and fellow novelist Stewart O’Nan, was Faithful, a diary of the 2004 Red Sox season. Faithful is written not from inside the clubhouse or the press room, but from the outside, from the stands and the sofa in front of the TV, by two fans who, like the rest of New England, have lived and died (mostly died) with the Sox for decades. From opposite ends of Red Sox Nation, King in Maine and O’Nan at the border of Yankees country in Connecticut, they would meet in the middle at Fenway Park or trade emails from home about the games they’d both stayed up past midnight to watch. King (or, rather, “Steve”) is emotional, O’Nan (or “Stew”) is obsessively analytical. Steve, as the most famous Sox fan who didn’t star in Gigli, is a folk hero of sorts, trading high fives with doormen and enjoying box seats better than John Kerry’s, while Stew is an anonymous nomad, roving all over the park. (Although he’s such a shameless ballhound that he gains some minor celebrity as "Netman" when he brings a giant fishing net to hawk batting-practice flies from the top of the Green Monster.)
You won’t find any of the Roger Angell-style lyricism here that baseball, and the Sox in particular, seem to bring out in people. (King wouldn’t stand for it.) Instead, this is the voice of sports talk radio: two fans by turns hopeful, distraught, and elated, who assess every inside pitch and every waiver move as a personal affront or vindication. Full of daily play-by-play and a season’s rises and falls, Faithful isn’t self-reflective or flat-out funny enough to become a sports classic like Fever Pitch, Ball Four, or A Fan’s Notes, but like everything else associated with the Red Sox 2004 season, from the signing of Curt Schilling to Dave Roberts’s outstretched fingers, it carries the golden glow of destiny. And, of course, it’s got a heck of an ending. —Tom Nissley From Publishers Weekly
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. Beginning with an e-mail exchange in the summer of 2003, novelists King and O’Nan started keeping diaries chronicling the Red Sox’s season, from spring training to the Series’ final game. Although they attended some games together, the two did most of their conversing in electronic missives about the team’s players, the highs and lows of their performance on the field and the hated Yankees (“limousine longballers”). O’Nan acts as a play-by-play announcer, calling the details of every game (sometimes quite tediously), while King provides colorful commentary, making the games come alive by proffering his intense emotional reactions to them. When the Red Sox find themselves three games down during the ALCS, King reflects on the possibilities of a win in game four: “Yet still we are the faithful… we tell ourselves it’s just one game at a time. We tell ourselves the impossible can start tonight.” After the Sox win the Series, O’Nan delivers a fan’s thanks: “You believed in yourselves even more than we did. That’s why you’re World Champions, and why we’ll never forget you or this season. Wherever you go, any of you, you’ll always have a home here, in the heart of the Nation.” (At times, the authors’ language borders on the maudlin.) But King and O’Nan are, admittedly, more eloquent than average baseball fans (or average sportswriters, for that matter), and their book will provide Red Sox readers an opportunity to relive every nail-biting moment of a memorable season.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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SO:I can see you in the parking lot, wagging a finger, waylaying strangers—“Need one.”

SK:The Sox are a hot ticket everywhere they go in Florida. Folks think they are a genna-wine Team of Destiny. They banged out Ed Wood Stadium, or whatever they call the place here in Sarasota where Cincy plays; first time in two years. And were turning them away at the door. All that and Air-Cast Nomar didn’t even play. It will be interesting to see if the phenomenon carries over into the regular season.

Remember the year the Orioles were relatively stacked and started 0-21? Or was it 0-22?

Go you big David Ortiz.

I call up the website and find we’ve shipped Tony Womack to the Cards. With Womack gone, we don’t have a designated late-inning base-stealer, unless Shump is showing flashes of his old speed. I feel bad for Womack, his salary and Lamborghini notwithstanding. He bunted and ran better than anyone on the team this spring, but not being able to play the field, he never had a chance.

Shump takes advantage of this break by straining a hamstring in the night game. So after finally outlasting Womack, he essentially hands McCarty the twenty-fifth spot.

March 24th

The drawing for Monster seats was yesterday. All morning I avoid opening my e-mail, not wanting to jinx our shot. It’s noon when I finally check, expecting dozens of forwards from my co-conspirators. There’s a piece of spam from priceline.com, that’s it.

At five there’s still nothing, good or bad.

The Sox are playing the Yanks on NESN. Trudy says I can watch it, but there’s an interesting documentary on, and I say, “That’s okay. It’s just pre-season.”

The documentary’s short, and we catch up to the game late. We’re behind 8–5, but when we rally in the bottom of the ninth, there aren’t enough Yankee fans left to overcome a hearty “Let’s go, Red Sox!” chant. It’s a classic Red Sox moment, that refusal to give in, even with Lowell Spinner Iggy Suarez stepping to the plate as our last hope. Iggy, feeling it, singles. With two on and two out, Dauber hits a flare to left, and it’s 8–6 with men on second and third and Hyzdu coming up. The chanting grows frantic, like we might actually pull it out. Hyzdu’s batting .173. He shows us why, taking three late, waving swings, and for the second time this spring we lose to the Yankees.

I turn the channel. I know it’s only exhibition, and that it’s classier not to chase after meaningless wins, but it’s irritating.

By midnight I still haven’t gotten any e-mail about Monster tickets. I think that can’t be good, but, like losing to the Yanks, there’s nothing I can do but eat it.

March 25th

I’m hoping/expecting to shove all the work off my desk and get down to City of Palms to see the Sox on Saturday. I’ve got an invite to watch the game with Dan “Curse of the Bambino” Shaughnessy, the writer most New England fans (at least those who read the Boston Globe ) most readily associate with the Olde Towne Team. And this Curse thing has really entered the New England stream of consciousness, as I’m sure you know—it’s right up there with the Salem witch trials and Maine lobstah, up there to the point where some wit with a spray can (or tortured sports fan/artist, take your choice) has turned a traffic sign reading REVERSE CURVE on Storrow Drive into one reading REVERSE THE CURSE. Ofcourse you and I know the so-called Curse of the Bambino is about as real as the so-called Books of Mormon, supposedly discovered in a cave and read with the help of “magic peekin’ stones” (true!), but like all those Mormons, I kind of believe in spite of the thing’s patent absurdity.

March 27th

At three the remaining Green Monster seats go on sale. Considering we went 0 for 34 during the online lottery, I can’t imagine there are any left, but at 2:57 I’m watching the seconds tick off on the Weather Channel. I’ve enlisted Trudy, against her will, to take the other phone, and at exactly three we bombard the old info line.

Forty minutes into it, Trudy breaks through and hands over the phone. “I did my duty.”

I wait through “Hot Fun in the Summertime,” and Boz Scaggs’s “It’s Over,” and “(Na Na Hey Hey) Kiss Him Good-bye.” When I finally get a human, he says there are actual seats left, which I think is wrong.

“Anything for the Yankees?”

“I can get you second row for April eighteenth.”

“I’ll take ’em,” I say, thinking I’m getting away with something.

March 28th

Now they’re saying Nomar probably won’t make the opener. Francona, trying to play it down, says Nomar would be starting if it were September—as if he doesn’t know all the games count the same.

March 30th

The Yomiuri (Tokyo) Giants, who Matsui played for, are Japan’s answer to the Yankees—based in the largest city, with dozens of championships. My friend Phil in Tokyo has told me the Hanshin Tigers from Osaka-Kyoto are their Sox, a hard-luck club with fans who are devoted beyond all reason. Last year they won the Central League, beating the Giants, then lost a heartbreaker of a Series to the Daiei Hawks. For a couple weeks, people all over Japan were wearing their Hanshin Tigers gear, even in Tokyo.

It makes sense—Osaka-Kyoto is like Boston, a proud, much smaller city in the shadow of a megalopolis, and like the Yankees, the Giants have the most money and generate the most media coverage.

Yesterday the Hanshin Tigers pounded Donovan Osborne and the Yanks, 11–7. Their first baseman, with the un-Japanese-sounding name of Arias, has a sweet line in the box score: 4 2 3 5. Go Tigers!

Today the Yanks open the regular season there—in fact, with the time difference, they’re losing to Lou Piniella’s Devil Rays as I read the morning paper.

SK:I got down to the game yesterday and saw my man Tim Wakefield go a strong six. We won, 8–3. He gave up two long balls, but the second was a pop-fly type of deal that just kind of got up in the slipstream and carried over the wall. It would have been caught by Trot (in Fenway). I spent a lot of time in the booth with Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano. Troop told me a really terrible joke. Janet Jackson decides to rehab her tattered reputation by becoming the first woman to play major league baseball, right? But it doesn’t work. Her first at-bat in Kansas City… she pops out again.

BOOO!

In between half-innings in the sixth—this could only happen to a writer—I was proofing some copy for the final Dark Tower book and working out with my eraser. The Sox come up just as I’m finishing. The first pitch produces a line foul that missed my nose by less than an inch. I swear this is a true thing I’m telling you. I saw it go between my nose and the little pile of manuscript I had in my hands, also heard the baleful whiz of the ball, which hit an old guy behind me pretty hard. My seat-mates are going, “Did you see that? Pokey Reese almost nailed Stephen King!” Etc, etc. Well, the lady next to me was into her third or fourth beer—enough so she was willing to be disapproving no matter who I was. She said, “We’re sitting right behind the dugout, in case you didn’t notice. You should be paying attention.” I replied—and I really believe this to be true—that if I had been watching, I would have involuntarily jerked right into it and gotten my friggin’ face rearranged (some would say that might be an improvement). I mean, that thing was a rocket.

I’m back for more abuse tomorrow. That’s the last spring training tilt. Then things get serious.

SO:Glad you’re okay, and congratulations on finishing. Now the important question: Who got the ball?

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