Stephen King’s Red Sox marriage

A number of celebrity sports fans are insufferable.

But you’ve gotta hand it to Stephen King.

The Maine native, one of the iconic authors of our time, remembers Ken Coleman’s description of Yaz’s final at-bat. He recalls sitting in his parked car listening to the radio during the ’86 World Series, as there was no TV reception in western Maine at the time. As King’s hand rested on a bottle of champagne, the ball skipped through Buckner’s legs.

That champagne is still on ice.

While many rushed to cash in on the Red Sox winning the World Series 18 years later, King had penned The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon five years prior. While that volume had an overt Red Sox reference, it wasn’t the first time King’s text had pointed, directly or indirectly, to his favorite baseball team.

And Faithful, a diary of the 2004 season, co-written with Stewart O’Nan, rode the ebbs and flows of the transcendent campaign and spilled King’s visceral reactions to every error, gopher ball, and comeback win, all over the pages.

Stephen King is no pink hat.

He actually rocked a blue and white Sox hat last week on Late Night with Seth Myers. King’s new film, A Good Marriage, is in theaters and King took a minute to give a nod to a retiring Derek Jeter:

And then there’s his take on “Sweet Caroline,” from a recent episode of SI Now:

"Baseball traditions grow on their own accord, and they should be allowed to die on their own accord."

While many Red Sox fans would prefer the Fenway anthem suffer a vintage King horror-show demise, you have to respect the author’s even-handed assessment.

A Good Marriage hit theaters Friday.