Former New York Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain had a plethora of heated battles with the Boston Red Sox during his time in MLB, but he shared on a podcast this week that the worst part of playing at Fenway Park had nothing to do with the opponent. Instead, Chamberlain just really hated having to hear “Sweet Caroline,” Neil Diamond’s classic song that is often played at Red Sox games.
On the Balk Talk podcast, Chamberlain opened up about his time in the major leagues, and he didn’t hold back about his hatred of the song, and how it still haunts him to this day:
Ugh, the worst. And the worst is my son and his buddies terrorize me. Legitimately, they’ll play it on their phones. We were having a end-of-the-year watch party or something at one of my bars or restaurants and they played it on the jukebox and I lost my mind. […] Is it catchy? Yes. I won’t deny that. But at the same time, I had to hear it all the time, every time I came into the game against Boston. I don’t want to hear it.”
Fenway Park always plays the song during the middle of the eighth inning, which unfortunately is usually around the time that Chamberlain, a reliever, would come into the game. He even reminisced about Opening Day 2010, a particularly painful memory for him:
Of course, you’re going to hear this damn song and you’re like ‘All right…’ And you try to block it out, but you can’t because all the fans go crazy. I won’t take anything away from the song, but I can’t stand it.
Chamberlain was always an outspoken player while he was in the majors, so it’s no surprise that he was so vocal about his hate of the song. As for Neil Diamond himself? “I don’t know him, but I don’t like him,” he said, strictly because of that one song.
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