Lewiston native Tom Caron is staying on the road with the Red Sox.
Jack Caron, 7, is an unabashed Red Sox fan.
The boy buzz cut his hair like his baseball heroes and plans to trick or treat this Halloween as the team’s unofficial slogan: “Cowboy Up.”
He wants his dad, sportscaster Tom Caron, back home. But if he returns, it can be a sign that his favorite team is done for the season.
“Dad?” Jack asked before the second playoff trip to Oakland. “I hope you don’t mind, but I hope you’re not here.”
“I understand,” his dad replied.
A native of Lewiston, Caron has seen little of home lately.
The Red Sox won Game 6 of the American League Championship Series Wednesday, forcing one more game between the Sox and the Yankees. Caron spent one more night in New York City.
The interviewer for the New England Sports Network followed the team all season long. The pace increased as the team reached the playoffs, won a cross-country endurance test with the Oakland Athletics and began its league championship series with the Yankees with only a day to rest.
“And they won that game,” Caron said. “(Meanwhile) I had no idea what time it was.”
Maybe, when it’s all through, the lifelong Red Sox fan will feel the full impact of 2003’s winning season, when a bunch of the team’s everyday grunts rallied to their best showing in nearly two decades.
“You knew right away that this team was special,” said Caron. The new players, particularly Todd Walker, David Ortiz and Kevin Millar, were “funny and likable.”
And they weren’t superstars, the big names who typically lead a team.
Blue-collar guys
“These are the blue-collar guys,” Caron said. The change was obvious from the start of spring training. It only gained strength after that, he said.
During baseball’s regular season, Caron traveled with the team from park to park. While NESN’s announcers covered every pitch, Caron interviewed Red Sox fans.
When the playoffs began – and the coverage of the team went to ESPN and the Fox network – Caron stayed with the team, interviewing the players for the New England channel’s post-game show.
“It doesn’t get any bigger than this,” Caron said Wednesday morning from his New York hotel.
In a few hours, he would go with the Sox to Yankee Stadium for batting practice. Before and after the game, he could be a fan.
“It becomes a job, a great job,” he said. “But it’s still work.”
It has taken time.
Seconds after the Red Sox’ worst moment of the 1980s, Caron faced the TV cameras.
He was deep in enemy territory, a rookie sports reporter in an Upstate New York studio.
Mookie Wilson hit a ball through Sox first baseman Bill Buckner’s legs, forcing the 1986 World Series into a seventh game.
Caron had been about to call his dad at home in Lewiston, to share the win. The numbers were all dialed, save the last one.
“Obviously, I never made the call,” said Caron.
When the game ended, jubilant New Yorkers saw Caron on the anchor desk.
“I pounded the desk on the air,” he said, still a little embarrassed by his outburst. “The longer you do this, the less you’re a fan.”
Long-time fan
There’s still a part of him, though, who loves the Sox.
His parents, Vi and Bob Caron, still have a photo that was taken when Tom was 3 years old. It was 1967, the Impossible Dream year, and he was clutching a Red Sox pennant.
Today, friends from Lewiston, where he graduated from high school, write him e-mails about the games or the players.
His family still keeps its ties here, where his wife, Kelley O’Malley Caron, also grew up. They and their kids, Jack and Robbie, 3, come often. The visits are mostly in the off-season, though.
During the winter, Caron, 39, is the desk announcer for NESN’s Bruins coverage. But hockey has fewer games and Caron stays in Boston.
This playoff season has been a highlight, though. He interviewed the players when they clinched a wild card berth and again when they won the division series.
“I learned that champagne stings when you get it in your eye,” said Caron. “And I learned to pack a change of clothes.”
dhartill@sunjournal.com
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