Why Play the National Anthem Before Games?
Why Play the National Anthem Before Games?
The Star-Spangled Banner, Patriotism
Why do teams insist on playing the national anthem before games?
In our society – I don’t know why – sports are about patriotism. Before games they play “The Star-Spangled Banner” and sometimes unfurl American flags the size of football fields and have flyovers from big loud armed-forces jets, the entire stadium shaking from the roar. Fans stand with hands over hearts and sing the lyrics – well, some do. In the baseballs season, the anthem ritual – obligation? – happens 162 times for every team, not to mention spring training games. An absolute orgy of O say can you see.
Forget that professional sports and major college sports are big business, have nothing to do with patriotism. But it pays for teams to appear patriotic, appeals to some of the fan base, makes teams look virtuous.
You go to a movie, they don’t make you stand for “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Ditto for a Broadway play. Yet there we are at games showing we love America. Being forced to show we love America. I love America but don’t love the pressure to prove it again and again.
They didn’t regularly play the anthem at games until World War II. We were fighting Hiter, fighting for our lives. You bet people stood, and the tradition continues. The anthem wasn’t even the anthem until 1931when President Herbert Hoover signed a bill anointing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Before that we didn’t even have a national anthem.
I spent most of my adult life standing for the anthem in press boxes. I have stood for thousands of anthem renditions grumpily. I was not being unpatriotic. I was bored. I heard the song so many times I didn’t hear it anymore. For all I knew someone could have been singing “When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie.” The anthem became background noise. Sounds without meaning.
Sometimes the anthem is a press-box joke. So many bad singers out there who can’t reach the high notes of and the rockets’ red glare. Laughter in the press box. Suppressed snorts. Or singers forget the lyrics. Remember Robert Goulet mangling the song before Ali-Liston II, the poor guy singing O say can you see by the dawn’s early night. Or singers trying to make an artistic statement, dragging out the song forever. You’d think Beverly Sills or Pavarotti were singing areas at the Met. Amid suppressed giggles, some press-box wise guy pulls out a stopwatch and times the performance. She’s gone over two minutes!
So, please stop with the anthem at games. Stop the phony, enforced association between multibillion-dollar, money-making corporations and true patriotism. Play the anthem at selected games on Memorial Day, July 4th, and September 11th, maybe Christmas Day, maybe New Year’s Day. People will listen and sing with love in their hearts. And the song will have the meaning and the majesty and the respect it deserves.
Excerpted from my sports memoir Gloves Off: 40 Years of Unfiltered Sports Writing.
Good post. From a logical standpoint, I completely agree, it’s odd we have the anthem at games and not other communal events. And I’m not a big fan of compulsory patriotism, either.
But on a gut level, I do enjoy the anthem whenever I’m at a game. Maybe I’d feel differently if I’d been through it thousands of times, though, as part of my job. Cheers
I love this. Wouldn’t it be interesting if a game started with a popular song instead? Thunderstruck by ACDC comes to mind.